Search Results

Search found 12089 results on 484 pages for 'rule of three'.

Page 335/484 | < Previous Page | 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342  | Next Page >

  • BigData and Customer Experience: Happy Together

    - by Isabel F. Peñuelas
    The two big buzzes of the year may lay closer than it appears. Both concepts intersect at various points: BigData and Return of Investment of Marketing Campaigns On a recent post Big Data Is The Future Of Marketing Jeff Dachis explains very clearly how “Big data analytics finally allows marketers to identify, measure, and manage what is positively impacting their Brand”. Regression analysis applied to big data volumes coming from social media will substitute the failed attempts to justify marketing investments on social media in terms of followers and likes, he continues, “the measurement models applied by marketers on TV Campaigns don´t work on social”, we need to study the data with fresh eyes and maybe then we will start understanding and measuring brand engagemet. Social CRM and BigData The real value of Social CRM start by analyzing mass of big data from social media in order of applying social intelligence techniques that allow us to classify new customer niches and communities and define appropriated strategies to contact potential customers. Gartner Says that the Market for Social CRM is on pace to surpass $1 Billion in Revenue by Year-End 2012 but in words of Zach Hofer-Shall, Analyst at Forrester Research “Social customer relationship management is hard” (The Social CRM Arms Race Heats ). To succeed brands need three things: Investing in new social tools, investing in consultancy and investing in infrastructure for massive data storage and analysis. Neither CeX or BigData are easy and cheap wins. But what are the customer benefits of such investments? Big Data and Brand Engagement Time is the most valuable asset of todays consumers: tired of information overload, exhausted by the terabytes of offering, anxious because of not having the same fast multichannel experience with their services’ marketers or preferred goods providers than the one they found on their social media. Yes, I know you have read this before- me too. But is real. The motto of the Customer Experience philosophy of providing a consistent experience through multiple touchpoints that makes the relationship customer/brand easier and valuable finds it basis on understanding customer/s preferences and context for which BigData analysis is another imperative. In summary, I believe that using BigData Analysis in combination with appropriated CeX strategies and technologies is a promising direction for achieving: efficiency and marketing cost-savings; growing the customer base; and increasing customer conversion and retention. In a world: The Direction of Future Marketing.

    Read the article

  • The First Annual Crappy Code Games

    - by Testas
    SQLBits announced some super-exciting news! A tie-up with our platinum sponsor, Fusion-io. Together we'll be running a series of events called "The Crappy Code Games" where SQL Server developers will compete to write the worst-performing code and win some very cool prizes including:   •        Gold: A hands-on, high performance flying day for two at Ultimate High plus Fusion-io flight jackets•        Silver: One day racing experience at Palmer Sports where you will drive seven different high performance cars•        Bronze: Pure Tech Racing 10 person package at PTR’s F1 racing facility includes FI tees, food and drinks. …plus iPods, Windows Mobile phones, X-box 360s, t-shirts and much more. There will be two qualifying events in Manchester on March 17th and London on March 31st, and the third qualifier as well as the grand finale will be held in the evening of Thursday April 7th at SQLBits. And if that isn’t cool enough, Fusion-io's Chief Scientist Steve Wozniak (yes, that Steve Wozniak, tech industry legend and co-founder of Apple) will be on hand in Brighton to hand out the prizes! If you'd like to take part you'll need to register, and since places are limited we recommend you do so right away. For more details and to register, go to http://www.crappycodegames.com/ The Games: In conjunction with SQL Bits, dbA-thletes (that’s you) will compete  head-to-head in one of three separate qualifying events to be held in Manchester, London and Brighton.  Four separate SQL  rounds make up the evening’s Games, and will challenge you to write code that pushes the boundaries of SQL performance.  The four events are: ?  The High Jump: Generate the highest I/O per second ?  The 100 m dash: Cumulative highest number of I/O’s in 60 seconds ?  The SSIS-athon: Load one billion row fact table in the shortest time ?  The Marathon: Generate the highest MB per second in 60 seconds

    Read the article

  • JavaOne 2012 Call for Papers

    - by Tori Wieldt
    JavaOne 2012 is happening Sept. 30-Oct 4 in San Francisco. The Call For Papers for this conference is now open. Java Evangelist Arun Gupta, who was on one of the selection committees and will be again this year, provided some great tips for submission (and a peek into the submission process): JavaOne is a technology-focused conference so any product, marketing or seemingly marketish talk are put at the bottom of the list. Oracle Open World and Oracle Develop are better options for submitting product specific talks. Make your title catchy. Remember the attendees are more likely to read the abstract if they like the title. We try our best to recategorize the talk to a different track if it needs to but please ensure that you are filing in the right track to have all the right eyeballs looking at it. Also, it does not hurt marking an alternate track if your talk meets the criteria. Make sure to coordinate within your team before the submission - multiple sessions from the same team or company does not ensure that the best speaker is picked. In such case we rely upon your "google presence" and/or review committee's prior knowledge of the speaker. The reviewers may not know you or your product at all and you get 750 characters to pitch your idea. Make sure to use all of them, to the last 750th character. Make sure to read your abstract multiple times to ensure that you are giving all the relevant information ? Think through your presentation and see if you are leaving out any important aspects. Also look if the abstract has any redundant information that will not required by the reviewers. There are additional sections that allow you to share information about the speaker and the presentation summary. Use them to blow the horn about yourself and any other relevant details. Please don't say "call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx to find out the details." :-) The tracks this year are: Core Java Platform Development Tools and Techniques Emerging Langauges on the JVM Enterprise Services Architectures and the Cloud Java EE Web Profile and Platform Technologies Java ME, Java Card, Embedded, and Devices Java FX and Rich User Experiences IMPORTANT: Submit your proposal as soon as possible, the the Call for Papers closes April 9th, a mere three weeks away!  Follow these channels to get the latest news about #JavaOne 2012.  originally posted on blogs.oracle.com/javaone

    Read the article

  • JavaOne 2012 Call for Papers

    - by Tori Wieldt
    JavaOne 2012 is happening Sept. 30-Oct 4 in San Francisco. The Call For Papers for this conference is now open. Java Evangelist Arun Gupta, who was on one of the selection committees and will be again this year, provided some great tips for submission (and a peek into the submission process): JavaOne is a technology-focused conference so any product, marketing or seemingly marketish talk are put at the bottom of the list. Oracle Open World and Oracle Develop are better options for submitting product specific talks. Make your title catchy. Remember the attendees are more likely to read the abstract if they like the title. We try our best to recategorize the talk to a different track if it needs to but please ensure that you are filing in the right track to have all the right eyeballs looking at it. Also, it does not hurt marking an alternate track if your talk meets the criteria. Make sure to coordinate within your team before the submission - multiple sessions from the same team or company does not ensure that the best speaker is picked. In such case we rely upon your "google presence" and/or review committee's prior knowledge of the speaker. The reviewers may not know you or your product at all and you get 750 characters to pitch your idea. Make sure to use all of them, to the last 750th character. Make sure to read your abstract multiple times to ensure that you are giving all the relevant information ? Think through your presentation and see if you are leaving out any important aspects. Also look if the abstract has any redundant information that will not required by the reviewers. There are additional sections that allow you to share information about the speaker and the presentation summary. Use them to blow the horn about yourself and any other relevant details. Please don't say "call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx to find out the details." :-) The tracks this year are: Core Java Platform Development Tools and Techniques Emerging Langauges on the JVM Enterprise Services Architectures and the Cloud Java EE Web Profile and Platform Technologies Java ME, Java Card, Embedded, and Devices Java FX and Rich User Experiences IMPORTANT: Submit your proposal as soon as possible, the the Call for Papers closes April 9th, a mere three weeks away!  Follow these channels to get the latest news about #JavaOne 2012. 

    Read the article

  • SPARC T4-2 Produces World Record Oracle Essbase Aggregate Storage Benchmark Result

    - by Brian
    Significance of Results Oracle's SPARC T4-2 server configured with a Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array and running Oracle Solaris 10 with Oracle Database 11g has achieved exceptional performance for the Oracle Essbase Aggregate Storage Option benchmark. The benchmark has upwards of 1 billion records, 15 dimensions and millions of members. Oracle Essbase is a multi-dimensional online analytical processing (OLAP) server and is well-suited to work well with SPARC T4 servers. The SPARC T4-2 server (2 cpus) running Oracle Essbase 11.1.2.2.100 outperformed the previous published results on Oracle's SPARC Enterprise M5000 server (4 cpus) with Oracle Essbase 11.1.1.3 on Oracle Solaris 10 by 80%, 32% and 2x performance improvement on Data Loading, Default Aggregation and Usage Based Aggregation, respectively. The SPARC T4-2 server with Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array and Oracle Essbase running on Oracle Solaris 10 achieves sub-second query response times for 20,000 users in a 15 dimension database. The SPARC T4-2 server configured with Oracle Essbase was able to aggregate and store values in the database for a 15 dimension cube in 398 minutes with 16 threads and in 484 minutes with 8 threads. The Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array provides more than a 20% improvement out-of-the-box compared to a mid-size fiber channel disk array for default aggregation and user-based aggregation. The Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array with Oracle Essbase provides the best combination for large Oracle Essbase databases leveraging Oracle Solaris ZFS and taking advantage of high bandwidth for faster load and aggregation. Oracle Fusion Middleware provides a family of complete, integrated, hot pluggable and best-of-breed products known for enabling enterprise customers to create and run agile and intelligent business applications. Oracle Essbase's performance demonstrates why so many customers rely on Oracle Fusion Middleware as their foundation for innovation. Performance Landscape System Data Size(millions of items) Database Load(minutes) Default Aggregation(minutes) Usage Based Aggregation(minutes) SPARC T4-2, 2 x SPARC T4 2.85 GHz 1000 149 398* 55 Sun M5000, 4 x SPARC64 VII 2.53 GHz 1000 269 526 115 Sun M5000, 4 x SPARC64 VII 2.4 GHz 400 120 448 18 * – 398 mins with CALCPARALLEL set to 16; 484 mins with CALCPARALLEL threads set to 8 Configuration Summary Hardware Configuration: 1 x SPARC T4-2 2 x 2.85 GHz SPARC T4 processors 128 GB memory 2 x 300 GB 10000 RPM SAS internal disks Storage Configuration: 1 x Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array 40 x 24 GB flash modules SAS HBA with 2 SAS channels Data Storage Scheme Striped - RAID 0 Oracle Solaris ZFS Software Configuration: Oracle Solaris 10 8/11 Installer V 11.1.2.2.100 Oracle Essbase Client v 11.1.2.2.100 Oracle Essbase v 11.1.2.2.100 Oracle Essbase Administration services 64-bit Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2.0.3) HP's Mercury Interactive QuickTest Professional 9.5.0 Benchmark Description The objective of the Oracle Essbase Aggregate Storage Option benchmark is to showcase the ability of Oracle Essbase to scale in terms of user population and data volume for large enterprise deployments. Typical administrative and end-user operations for OLAP applications were simulated to produce benchmark results. The benchmark test results include: Database Load: Time elapsed to build a database including outline and data load. Default Aggregation: Time elapsed to build aggregation. User Based Aggregation: Time elapsed of the aggregate views proposed as a result of tracked retrieval queries. Summary of the data used for this benchmark: 40 flat files, each of size 1.2 GB, 49.4 GB in total 10 million rows per file, 1 billion rows total 28 columns of data per row Database outline has 15 dimensions (five of them are attribute dimensions) Customer dimension has 13.3 million members 3 rule files Key Points and Best Practices The Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array has been used to accelerate the application performance. Setting data load threads (DLTHREADSPREPARE) to 64 and Load Buffer to 6 improved dataloading by about 9%. Factors influencing aggregation materialization performance are "Aggregate Storage Cache" and "Number of Threads" (CALCPARALLEL) for parallel view materialization. The optimal values for this workload on the SPARC T4-2 server were: Aggregate Storage Cache: 32 GB CALCPARALLEL: 16   See Also Oracle Essbase Aggregate Storage Option Benchmark on Oracle's SPARC T4-2 Server oracle.com Oracle Essbase oracle.com OTN SPARC T4-2 Server oracle.com OTN Oracle Solaris oracle.com OTN Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Enterprise Edition oracle.com OTN Disclosure Statement Copyright 2012, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Results as of 28 August 2012.

    Read the article

  • ASP.NET MVC 3 Hosting :: How to Upgrade ASP.NET MVC 2 Project to ASP.NET MVC 3

    - by mbridge
    ASP.NET MVC 3 can be installed side by side with ASP.NET MVC 2 on the same computer, which gives you flexibility in choosing when to upgrade an ASP.NET MVC 2 application to ASP.NET MVC 3. The simplest way to upgrade is to create a new ASP.NET MVC 3 project and copy all the views, controllers, code, and content files from the existing MVC 2 project to the new project and then to update the assembly references in the new project to match the old project. If you have made changes to the Web.config file in the MVC 2 project, you must also merge those changes with the Web.config file in the MVC 3 project. To manually upgrade an existing ASP.NET MVC 2 application to version 3, do the following: 1. In both Web.config files in the MVC 3 project, globally search and replace the MVC version. Find the following: System.Web.Mvc, Version=2.0.0.0 Replace it with the following System.Web.Mvc, Version=3.0.0.0 There are three changes in the root Web.config and four in the Views\Web.config file. 2. In Solution Explorer, delete the reference to System.Web.Mvc (which points to the version 2 DLL). Then add a reference to System.Web.Mvc (v3.0.0.0). 3. In Solution Explorer, right-click the project name and then select Unload Project. Then right-click again and select Edit ProjectName.csproj. 4. Locate the ProjectTypeGuids element and replace {F85E285D-A4E0-4152-9332-AB1D724D3325} with {E53F8FEA-EAE0-44A6-8774-FFD645390401}. 5. Save the changes and then right-click the project and select Reload Project. 6. If the project references any third-party libraries that are compiled using ASP.NET MVC 2, add the following highlighted bindingRedirect element to the Web.config file in the application root under the configuration section: <runtime>   <assemblyBinding >     <dependentAssembly>       <assemblyIdentity name="System.Web.Mvc"           publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35"/>       <bindingRedirect oldVersion="2.0.0.0" newVersion="3.0.0.0"/>     </dependentAssembly>   </assemblyBinding> </runtime> Another ASP.NET MVC 3 article: - Rolling with Razor in MVC v3 Preview - Deploying ASP.NET MVC 3 web application to server where ASP.NET MVC 3 is not installed - RenderAction with ASP.NET MVC 3 Sessionless Controllers

    Read the article

  • Desktop login fails, terminal works

    - by Tobias
    I have a freshly setup 12.04 LTS pc system (120 GB SSD, 1 TB HDD, 16 GiB RAM); since a few days, I can't login to the graphical desktop anymore: there is very short flashing shell window which disappears very quickly, and I'm confronted with the login screen again. I believe there is something about modprobe and vbox, but I can't read it fast enough ... I can login to a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+F1). It did not help to chown all contents of my home directory to me:my-group, like suggested here. This is what I could find in /var/log, grepping for the date and time (I inserted linebreaks after <my-hostname>; real time values preserved): auth.log: <date> 22:43:01 <my-hostname> lightdm: pam_succeed_if(lightdm:auth): requirement "user ingroup nopasswdlogin" not met by user "tobias" <date> 22:43:08 <my-hostname> lightdm: pam_unix(lightdm:session): session closed for user lightdm <date> 22:43:08 <my-hostname> lightdm: pam_unix(lightdm:session): session opened for user tobias by (uid=0) <date> 22:43:08 <my-hostname> lightdm: pam_ck_connector(lightdm:session): nox11 mode, ignoring PAM_TTY :0 <date> 22:43:08 <my-hostname> lightdm: pam_unix(lightdm:session): session closed for user tobias <date> 22:43:09 <my-hostname> lightdm: pam_unix(lightdm:session): session opened for user lightdm by (uid=0) <date> 22:43:09 <my-hostname> lightdm: pam_ck_connector(lightdm:session): nox11 mode, ignoring PAM_TTY :0 <date> 22:43:10 <my-hostname> lightdm: pam_succeed_if(lightdm:auth): requirement "user ingroup nopasswdlogin" not met by user "tobias" <date> 22:43:10 <my-hostname> dbus[756]: [system] Rejected send message, 2 matched rules; type="method_call", sender="1:43" (uid=104 pid=1639 comm="/usr/lib/indicator-datetime/indicator-datetime-ser") interface="org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties" member="GetAll" error name="(unset)" requested_reply="0" destination=":1.15" (uid=0 pid=1005 comm="/usr/sbin/console-kit-daemon --no-daemon ") kern.log: <date> 22:43:00 <my-hostname> kernel: [ 16.084525] eth0: no IPv6 routers present syslog: <date> 22:43:00 <my-hostname> kernel: [ 16.084525] eth0: no IPv6 routers present <date> 22:43:01 <my-hostname> ntpdate[1492]: adjust time server 91.189.94.4 offset -0.162831 sec <date> 22:43:08 <my-hostname> acpid: client 969[0:0] has disconnected <date> 22:43:08 <my-hostname> acpid: client connected from 1553[0:0] <date> 22:43:08 <my-hostname> acpid: 1 client rule loaded I have Virtualbox and Truecrypt installed, but I can't think of a reason why they might prevent a graphical login. I'm confused: What is this about requirement "user ingroup nopasswdlogin" not met? I do login using a password, and the password works ok when logging in to a terminal! Can I somehow read the error output, e.g. by delaying it, redirecting it to a file, or having the system prompt me for pressing a key? Has possibly any recent update caused my problem? Should I install the pending updates? How, btw, without access to the graphical UI? I have some working knowledge about the Linux shell, but I'm new to Ubuntu. Any help would be appreciated.

    Read the article

  • I Choose iNada

    - by Mark Treadwell
    As a laptop and Kindle user, I have been looking at the usual cyclical Apple frenzy in the press with the same kind of amused tolerance I give my three-year-old son.  They never seem to learn, and they keep repeating the same things.  However when I ready articles like this, I am reminded that that is not always the case. I am a happy user of a monster-sized HP HDX laptop, HP touch screen all-in-one system, and multi-screen Dell desktops at home as well as a HP business laptop at work.  I have no iPod, iMac, iTouch or any other relationship with the company who wants to trademark the prefix “i”. I have not missed them. That is not to say that I have no technological gadgets.  I do.  They just do not dominate Every company wants to preserve their customer base, but Apple just does it too rigidly.  The buy-in necessary rubs me wrong.  When the fanboys scream about the next great iApple thing which will kill off another market segment (this time, the iPad will kill off laptops), the amused tolerance returns. From what I have seen, the iPad virtual keyboard is a poor substitute for an actual keyboard.  It was intended to let you get some kind of text into a device that is not really intended for keyboard input, but rather for touch manipulation of a designed interface.  I like the virtual keyboard on my LG Dare cell phone, but you will not catch me writing my next novel with it.  But, you hear, you can connect a real keyboard and get info from another computer.  That is when you realize that the iPad is not a true standalone device like a laptop.  You have to make more hardware purchases to get what you truly want.  It is an expensive accommodation to get you a different form of freedom. So if Apple made a product with me in mind, you can have it.  Everyone gets to make their own choice.  My choice is the iNada.

    Read the article

  • Oracle releases new Java Embedded products

    - by Henrik Stahl
    With less than one week to go to JavaOne 2012, we've spiced things up a little by releasing not one but two net new embedded Java products. This is an important step towards realizing the vision of Java as the standard platform for the Internet of Things that I outlined in a recent blog post. The two new products are: Java ME Embedded 3.2. Based on same code as the widely deployed Oracle Java Wireless Client for feature phones, this new product provides a Java ME implementation optimized for very small microcontroller-based devices and adds - among other things - a new Device Access API that enables interaction with peripherals common in edge devices such as various types of sensors. In addition to the new Java ME Embedded platform, we have also released an update of the Java ME SDK which adds support for the development of small embedded devices. Java Embedded Suite 7.0. This is an integrated middleware stack for embedded devices, incorporating Java SE Embedded and versions of JavaDB, GlassFish and a Web Services stack optimized for remote operation and small footprint. A typical Internet of Things (or M2M) infrastructure contains three types of compute nodes: The edge device which is typically a sensor or control point of some kind. These devices can be connected directly to a backend through a mobile network if they are installed in - for example - a remote vending machine; or, they can be part of a local short-range network and be connected to the backend through a more powerful gateway device. A gateway is the second type of compute node and acts as an aggregator and control point for a local network. A good example of this could be a generalized home Internet access point, or home gateway. Gateways are mostly using normal wall power and are used for multiple applications, deployed by multiple service providers. Finally, the last type of compute node is the normal enterprise or cloud backend. Java ME Embedded and Java Embedded Suite are perfect base software stacks for the edge devices and the gateway respectively, providing the Java promise of a platform independent runtime and a complete set of libraries as well as allowing a programmer to focus on the business logic rather than plumbing. We are very thrilled with these new releases that open up exciting opportunities for Java developers to extend services and enterprise applications in ways that will make organizations more efficient and touch our daily lives. To find out more, come to the JavaOne conference (for technical content) and to the Java Embedded @ JavaOne subconference (for business content). There will be plenty of cool demos showing complete end-to-end applications, provided by Oracle and our partners, as well as keynotes and numerous sessions where you can learn more about the technology and business opportunities.

    Read the article

  • Softpedia published some of my open source projects — how to react?

    - by polarblau
    (FYI: I've just moved this question over from Stackoverflow on recommendation.) I just received a few emails, informing me that softpedia.com has added some of my "products" to their "database of scripts, code snippets and web applications". My products are in this case some smaller open source projects, which I have hosted and published on github. Now I'm wondering how to react to this. This site is indirectly making money of my free work through ads on three pages before the actual download. They also seem to "invent" version numbers and I can't find out if they're hosting the latest or all versions of my projects. — I can see how this could lead to problems in the future, since I don't control what's "the latest" everywhere. On the other hand I don't mind some extra publicity. I want as many people as possible to know about the projects, use them, fork them and hopefully improve them. The projects in questions are really fairly small, but this might not be the case in the future for me and/or other people reading this question. I'm sure that this must have happened to others around here. What's your opinion? Should I try to get the downloads removed? Update 1 I've requested the removal and mentioned that I don't feel that Softpedia can provide the right environment for this kind of project. Their team got back to me instantly with a friendly email saying, that they'll remove the links for now: If you are worried that your projects won't be updated, then I must tell you that I have them bookmarked in my RSS reader, so any version changes will be forwarded to me when needed. So I promise I'll keep your script up to date as soon as I see an update in the repository. I have to say, that I appreciate this kind of reaction quite a lot and so I sent them another email, describing in more detail what I'm worried about and what bothers me. I also stated, that I'm aware that my license clearly permits them to host the projects in any case, but that I'd be even happy if they would host the projects as long as they could convince me of a few details and maybe make some small changes to the way the projects are represented. — Let's see where this goes. Update 2 After discussing with their contact and requesting some changes regarding display of version (they had given the possibility to do so) and authorship they put the projects back up on their site. All in all a positive and definitely interesting experience.

    Read the article

  • The Social Business Thought Leaders - Ray Wang

    - by kellsey.ruppel
    It seems both consumers and businesses are at the peak of the social hype. Overwhelmed by social media channels, platforms, and processes both in their private and professional life, many early adopters are starting to feel the social fatigue. Mirroring what happened with email and web sites during the late 1990's - early 2000's, more and more managers are looking to move from ubiquitous social media tactics to the most appropriate business use case and processes. This step becomes even more important considering the year over year contraction in IT budgets and the consequent need to maximize return on every dollar spent in new technologies. Ray Wang, CEO and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, suggests engagement through collaborative technologies both as a conceptual model and a transformational tool for enterprises to reap business value. Without participation - the reasoning goes - there is no value and good technology alone is not enough to guarantee employee and customer adoption. Enterprise gamification is a new lever to succeed with Social Business by directing a critical mass of participation towards desired outcomes. What kind of outcomes? A recent study from Constellation Research (see 2012 Q1 Gamification Early Adopters Best Practices) highlights how Marketing, Customer Service and HR are leading the pack with gamification in processes such as: Sustaining long term customer loyalty (76.4%) Improving response in campaign to lead (74.5%) Right channeling incidents for resolution in social media (67.3%) Growing the number service and support incidents resolved by the community (63.6%) Improving employee referral rates and effective recruiting (43.6%) Driving on-boarding success with new hires (20%) More than simply adding badges, points and leaderboards to existing processes, enterprise gamification should be holistically embedded into employee and customer experience to stimulate specific behaviors. According to Ray Wang this can be done at three core levels: Measurable actions. The behaviors we want to facilitate consist of granular actions (i.e likes, comments, posts, recommendations, etc) and more complex actions (i.e projects, initiatives, programmes) attributed to individuals, groups and/or external actors  Reputation. The reputation an individual has earned through his actions is a key factor in building motivation among others and it is determined by its identity, social standing status and competitiveness Incentives or the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards that motivate behaviors and drive actions Listen to Ray Wang's video-interview to learn more about the dynamics that are shaping the future of collaboration and how gamification can help organizations attain new levels of engagement.

    Read the article

  • Turn off keyboard back-light Sony (VAIO SVF1521DCXW)

    - by KasiyA
    I have a Sony laptop and I want to turn keyboard back-light off. It doesn't have a shortcut function key for doing this on the keyboard . I can turn off it with VAIO Control Center in Windows but I don't know how can I turn it off in Ubuntu 14.04. There isn't available to me: /sys/devices/platform/sony-laptop/kbd_backlight doesn't exist on my machine. I have this folder /sys/devices/platform/sony-laptop/ and there is three folder one power folder and two shortcut-ed folder driver , subsystem and five file contains battery_care_health , battery_care_limiter , modalias , touchpad and event This is the output of running sudo modinfo sony-laptop: filename: /lib/modules/3.13.0-34-generic/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/sony-laptop.ko version: 0.6 license: GPL description: Sony laptop extras driver (SPIC and SNC ACPI device) author: Stelian Pop, Mattia Dongili srcversion: 5C6E050349475558A231C59 alias: acpi*:SNY6001:* alias: acpi*:SNY5001:* depends: intree: Y vermagic: 3.13.0-34-generic SMP mod_unload modversions signer: Magrathea: Glacier signing key sig_key: 50:0B:C5:C8:7D:4B:11:5C:F3:C1:50:4F:7A:92:E2:33:C6:14:3D:58 sig_hashalgo: sha512 parm: debug:set this to 1 (and RTFM) if you want to help the development of this driver (int) parm: no_spic:set this if you don't want to enable the SPIC device (int) parm: compat:set this if you want to enable backward compatibility mode (int) parm: mask:set this to the mask of event you want to enable (see doc) (ulong) parm: camera:set this to 1 to enable Motion Eye camera controls (only use it if you have a C1VE or C1VN model) (int) parm: minor:minor number of the misc device for the SPIC compatibility code, default is -1 (automatic) (int) parm: kbd_backlight:set this to 0 to disable keyboard backlight, 1 to enable it (default: no change from current value) (int) parm: kbd_backlight_timeout:meaningful values vary from 0 to 3 and their meaning depends on the model (default: no change from current value) (int) With the suggested command: sudo modprobe -r sony_laptop sudo modprobe -v sony_laptop kbd_backlight=0 Output was: insmod /lib/modules/3.13.0-34-generic/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/sony-laptop.ko kbd_backlight=0 It doesn't seem to affect the keyboard backlight. And also trying this command: sudo modprobe -v sony_laptop kbd_backlight_timeout=3 kbd_backlight=0 and doesn't seem to effect the keyboard backlight I also test it after restart laptop, And I didn't see any effect too. Important : By default, keyboard backlight is off; when I press a key it turns on and after 15 seconds it turns off again. It's the same result on battery and AC power I followed also http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2139597 and Keyboard backlighting not working on a Vaio VPCSB11FX but didn't work so.

    Read the article

  • Viewing at Impossible Angles

    - by kemer
    The picture of the little screwdriver with the Allen wrench head to the right is bound to invoke a little nostalgia for those readers who were Sun customers in the late 80s. This tool was a very popular give-away: it was essential for installing and removing Multibus (you youngsters will have to look that up on Wikipedia…) cards in our systems. Back then our mid-sized systems were gargantuan: it was routine for us to schlep around a 200 lb. desk side box and 90 lb. monitor to demo a piece of software your smart phone will run better today. We were very close to the hardware, and the first thing a new field sales systems engineer had to learn was how put together a system. If you were lucky, a grizzled service engineer might run you through the process once, then threaten your health and existence should you ever screw it up so that he had to fix it. Nowadays we make it much easier to learn the ins and outs of our hardware with simulations–3D animations–that take you through the process of putting together or replacing pieces of a system. Most recently, we have posted three sophisticated PDFs that take advantage of Acrobat 9 features to provide a really intelligent approach to documenting hardware installation and repair: Sun Fire X4800/X4800 M2 Animations for Chassis Components Sun Fire X4800/X4800 M2 Animations for Sub Assembly Module (SAM) Sun Fire X4800/X4800 M2 Animations for CMOD Download one of these documents and take a close look at it. You can view the hardware from any angle, including impossible ones. Each document has a number of procedures, that break down into steps. Click on a procedure, then a step and you will see it animated in the drawing. Of course hardware design has generally eliminated the need for things like our old giveaway tools: components snap and lock in. Often you can replace redundant units while the system is hot, but for heaven’s sake, you’ll want to verify that you can do that before you try it! Meanwhile, we can all look forward to a growing portfolio of these intelligent documents. We would love to hear what you think about them. –Kemer

    Read the article

  • Questions re: Eclipse Jobs API

    - by BenCole
    Similar to http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8738160/eclipse-jobs-api-for-a-stand-alone-swing-project This question mentions the Jobs API from the Eclipse IDE: ...The disadvantage of the pre-3.0 approach was that the user had to wait until an operation completed before the UI became responsive again. The UI still provided the user the ability to cancel the currently running operation but no other work could be done until the operation completed. Some operations were performed in the background (resource decoration and JDT file indexing are two such examples) but these operations were restricted in the sense that they could not modify the workspace. If a background operation did try to modify the workspace, the UI thread would be blocked if the user explicitly performed an operation that modified the workspace and, even worse, the user would not be able to cancel the operation. A further complication with concurrency was that the interaction between the independent locking mechanisms of different plug-ins often resulted in deadlock situations. Because of the independent nature of the locks, there was no way for Eclipse to recover from the deadlock, which forced users to kill the application... ...The functionality provided by the workspace locking mechanism can be broken down into the following three aspects: Resource locking to ensure multiple operations did not concurrently modify the same resource Resource change batching to ensure UI stability during an operation Identification of an appropriate time to perform incremental building With the introduction of the Jobs API, these areas have been divided into separate mechanisms and a few additional facilities have been added. The following list summarizes the facilities added. Job class: support for performing operations or other work in the background. ISchedulingRule interface: support for determining which jobs can run concurrently. WorkspaceJob and two IWorkspace#run() methods: support for batching of delta change notifications. Background auto-build: running of incremental build at a time when no other running operations are affecting resources. ILock interface: support for deadlock detection and recovery. Job properties for configuring user feedback for jobs run in the background. The rest of this article provides examples of how to use the above-mentioned facilities... In regards to above API, is this an implementation of a particular design pattern? Which one?

    Read the article

  • Java Certification Exams and Their Move to Pearson VUE

    - by Harold Green
    You may be aware that Oracle recently migrated all Sun-branded certification exams from Prometric to Pearson VUE. Below are answers to some frequently-asked questions that we've been getting recently: What changes to the exams should I be aware of?Only minor changes were made to the exams during the transition to Pearson VUE: Renumbering of all exams to the Oracle exam numbering structure (i.e. 1Z0...). Most exam score reports were enhanced to provide more detailed feedback. Score reports now list every exam objective for which a question (or questions) were answered incorrectly. The previous format provided only section-level performance feedback. For three Java exams, some lengthy (time-consuming) questions were removed & replaced with shorter (less time-consuming) questions. This was done in order to shorten the required exam time (to 150 minutes). Some interactive question types were removed from several Java and Solaris exams (including "matching" and "drag-and-drop" questions). The passing scores (for the exams that were revised) were statistically adjusted to make them equal to their prior passing scores, thus ensuring that the exams maintained the same level of difficulty as before. The exam objectives and the exam questions themselves did not change. Candidates should study the same material and objectives. Are there also new testing practices I should be aware of?Oracle follows a common industry practice of placing occasional un-scored questions on our certification exams. Candidates will not know which questions are unscored. At the time of this blog post, only one of the migrated exams (1Z0-898) contains unscored questions.I started the Master certification path through Prometric, and now I need to complete the requirements through Pearson VUE. Where can I get guidance on this process?Visit our Vendor Transition FAQs to find comprehensive instructions. Oracle has created several specific paths to accommodate candidates who were at at varying stages of completion of their master path when the transition occurred. Make sure to follow the specific path designed for your case, as you will need to know which exam number to select in order to submit/re-submit your requirements. QUICK LINKS Oracle Certification Blog Post: Java, Oracle Solaris, MySQL and Other Former Sun Certification Exams Now Being Delivered At Pearson VUE Oracle Certification Website: Vendor Transition Announcement

    Read the article

  • Dynamic Filtering

    - by Ricardo Peres
    Continuing my previous posts on dynamic LINQ, now it's time for dynamic filtering. For now, I'll focus on string matching. There are three standard operators for string matching, which both NHibernate, Entity Framework and LINQ to SQL recognize: Equals Contains StartsWith EndsWith So, if we want to apply filtering by one of these operators on a string property, we can use this code: public enum MatchType { StartsWith = 0, EndsWith = 1, Contains = 2, Equals = 3 } public static List Filter(IEnumerable enumerable, String propertyName, String filter, MatchType matchType) { return (Filter(enumerable, typeof(T), propertyName, filter, matchType) as List); } public static IList Filter(IEnumerable enumerable, Type elementType, String propertyName, String filter, MatchType matchType) { MethodInfo asQueryableMethod = typeof(Queryable).GetMethods(BindingFlags.Static | BindingFlags.Public).Where(m = (m.Name == "AsQueryable") && (m.ContainsGenericParameters == false)).Single(); IQueryable query = (enumerable is IQueryable) ? (enumerable as IQueryable) : asQueryableMethod.Invoke(null, new Object [] { enumerable }) as IQueryable; MethodInfo whereMethod = typeof(Queryable).GetMethods(BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Static).Where(m = m.Name == "Where").ToArray() [ 0 ].MakeGenericMethod(elementType); MethodInfo matchMethod = typeof(String).GetMethod ( (matchType == MatchType.StartsWith) ? "StartsWith" : (matchType == MatchType.EndsWith) ? "EndsWith" : (matchType == MatchType.Contains) ? "Contains" : "Equals", new Type [] { typeof(String) } ); PropertyInfo displayProperty = elementType.GetProperty(propertyName, BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance); MemberExpression member = Expression.MakeMemberAccess(Expression.Parameter(elementType, "n"), displayProperty); MethodCallExpression call = Expression.Call(member, matchMethod, Expression.Constant(filter)); LambdaExpression where = Expression.Lambda(call, member.Expression as ParameterExpression); query = whereMethod.Invoke(null, new Object [] { query, where }) as IQueryable; MethodInfo toListMethod = typeof(Enumerable).GetMethod("ToList", BindingFlags.Static | BindingFlags.Public).MakeGenericMethod(elementType); IList list = toListMethod.Invoke(null, new Object [] { query }) as IList; return (list); } var list = new [] { new { A = "aa" }, new { A = "aabb" }, new { A = "ccaa" }, new { A = "ddaadd" } }; var contains = Filter(list, "A", "aa", MatchType.Contains); var endsWith = Filter(list, "A", "aa", MatchType.EndsWith); var startsWith = Filter(list, "A", "aa", MatchType.StartsWith); var equals = Filter(list, "A", "aa", MatchType.Equals); Perhaps I'll write some more posts on this subject in the near future. SyntaxHighlighter.config.clipboardSwf = 'http://alexgorbatchev.com/pub/sh/2.0.320/scripts/clipboard.swf'; SyntaxHighlighter.brushes.CSharp.aliases = ['c#', 'c-sharp', 'csharp']; SyntaxHighlighter.all();

    Read the article

  • JDK 7u25: Solutions to Issues caused by changes to Runtime.exec

    - by Devika Gollapudi
    The following examples were prepared by Java engineering for the benefit of Java developers who may have faced issues with Runtime.exec on the Windows platform. Background In JDK 7u21, the decoding of command strings specified to Runtime.exec(String), Runtime.exec(String,String[]) and Runtime.exec(String,String[],File) methods, has been made more strict. See JDK 7u21 Release Notes for more information. This caused several issues for applications. The following section describes some of the problems faced by developers and their solutions. Note: In JDK 7u25, the system property jdk.lang.Process.allowAmbigousCommands can be used to relax the checking process and helps as a workaround for some applications that cannot be changed. The workaround is only effective for applications that are run without a SecurityManager. See JDK 7u25 Release Notes for more information. Note: To understand the details of the Windows API CreateProcess call, see: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms682425%28v=vs.85%29.aspx There are two forms of Runtime.exec calls: with the command as string: "Runtime.exec(String command[, ...])" with the command as string array: "Runtime.exec(String[] cmdarray [, ...] )" The issues described in this section relate to the first form of call. With the first call form, developers expect the command to be passed "as is" to Windows where the command needs be split into its executable name and arguments parts first. But, in accordance with Java API, the command argument is split into executable name and arguments by spaces. Problem 1: "The file path for the command includes spaces" In the call: Runtime.getRuntime().exec("c:\\Program Files\\do.exe") the argument is split by spaces to an array of strings as: c:\\Program, Files\\do.exe The first element of parsed array is interpreted as the executable name, verified by SecurityManager (if present) and surrounded by quotations to avoid ambiguity in executable path. This results in the wrong command: "c:\\Program" "Files\\do.exe" which will fail. Solution: Use the ProcessBuilder class, or the Runtime.exec(String[] cmdarray [, ...] ) call, or quote the executable path. Where it is not possible to change the application code and where a SecurityManager is not used, the Java property jdk.lang.Process.allowAmbigousCommands could be used by setting its value to "true" from the command line: -Djdk.lang.Process.allowAmbigousCommands=true This will relax the checking process to allow ambiguous input. Examples: new ProcessBuilder("c:\\Program Files\\do.exe").start() Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"c:\\Program Files\\do.exe"}) Runtime.getRuntime().exec("\"c:\\Program Files\\do.exe\"") Problem 2: "Shell command/.bat/.cmd IO redirection" The following implicit cmd.exe calls: Runtime.getRuntime().exec("dir temp.txt") new ProcessBuilder("foo.bat", "", "temp.txt").start() Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"foo.cmd", "", "temp.txt"}) lead to the wrong command: "XXXX" "" temp.txt Solution: To specify the command correctly, use the following options: Runtime.getRuntime().exec("cmd /C \"dir temp.txt\"") new ProcessBuilder("cmd", "/C", "foo.bat temp.txt").start() Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"cmd", "/C", "foo.cmd temp.txt"}) or Process p = new ProcessBuilder("cmd", "/C" "XXX").redirectOutput(new File("temp.txt")).start(); Problem 3: "Group execution of shell command and/or .bat/.cmd files" Due to enforced verification procedure, arguments in the following calls create the wrong commands.: Runtime.getRuntime().exec("first.bat && second.bat") new ProcessBuilder("dir", "&&", "second.bat").start() Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"dir", "|", "more"}) Solution: To specify the command correctly, use the following options: Runtime.exec("cmd /C \"first.bat && second.bat\"") new ProcessBuilder("cmd", "/C", "dir && second.bat").start() Runtime.exec(new String[]{"cmd", "/C", "dir | more"}) The same scenario also works for the "&", "||", "^" operators of the cmd.exe shell. Problem 4: ".bat/.cmd with special DOS chars in quoted params” Due to enforced verification, arguments in the following calls will cause exceptions to be thrown.: Runtime.getRuntime().exec("log.bat \"error new ProcessBuilder("log.bat", "error Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"log.bat", "error Solution: To specify the command correctly, use the following options: Runtime.getRuntime().exec("cmd /C log.bat \"error new ProcessBuilder("cmd", "/C", "log.bat", "error Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"cmd", "/C", "log.bat", "error Examples: Complicated redirection for shell construction: cmd /c dir /b C:\ "my lovely spaces.txt" becomes Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"cmd", "/C", "dir \b \"my lovely spaces.txt\"" }); The Golden Rule: In most cases, cmd.exe has two arguments: "/C" and the command for interpretation.

    Read the article

  • SQL SERVER – BI Quiz Hint – Performance Tuning Cubes – Hints

    - by pinaldave
    I earlier wrote about SQL BI Quiz over here and here. The details of the quiz is here: Working with huge data is very common when it is about Data Warehousing. It is necessary to create Cubes on the data to make it meaningful and consumable. There are cases when retrieving the data from cube takes lots of the time. Let us assume that your cube is returning you data very quickly. Suddenly on one day it is returning the data very slowly. What are the three things will you to diagnose this. After diagnose what you will do to resolve performance issue. Participate in my question over here I required BI Expert Jason Thomas to help with few hints to blog readers. He is one of the leading SSAS expert and writes a complicated subject in simple words. If queries were executing properly before but now take a long time to return the data, it means that there has been a change in the environment in which it is running. Some possible changes are listed below:-  1) Data factors:- Compare the data size then and now. Increase in data can result in different execution times. Poorly written queries as well as poor design will not start showing issues till the data grows. How to find it out? (Ans : SQL Server profiler and Perfmon Counters can be used for identifying the issues and performance  tuning the MDX queries)  2) Internal Factors:- Is some slow MDX query / multiple mdx queries running at the same time, which was not running when you had tested it before? Is there any locking happening due to proactive caching or processing operations? Are the measure group caches being cleared by processing operations? (Ans : Again, profiler and perfmon counters will help in finding it out. Load testing can be done using AS Performance Workbench (http://asperfwb.codeplex.com/) by running multiple queries at once)  3) External factors:- Is some other application competing for the same resources?  HINT : Read “Identifying and Resolving MDX Query Performance Bottlenecks in SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services” (http://sqlcat.com/whitepapers/archive/2007/12/16/identifying-and-resolving-mdx-query-performance-bottlenecks-in-sql-server-2005-analysis-services.aspx) Well, these are great tips. Now win big prizes by participate in my question over here. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

    Read the article

  • Closing the Gap: 2012 IOUG Enterprise Data Security Survey

    - by Troy Kitch
    The new survey from the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG) titled "Closing the Security Gap: 2012 IOUG Enterprise Data Security Survey," uncovers some interesting trends in IT security among IOUG members and offers recommendations for securing data stored in enterprise databases. "Despite growing threats and enterprise data security risks, organizations that implement appropriate detective, preventive, and administrative safeguards are seeing significant results," finds the report's author, Joseph McKendrick, analyst, Unisphere Research. Produced by Unisphere Research and underwritten by Oracle, the report is based on responses from 350 IOUG members representing a variety of job roles, organization sizes, and industry verticals. Key findings include Corporate budgets increase, but trailing. Though corporate data security budgets are increasing this year, they still have room to grow to reach the previous year’s spending. Additionally, more than half of respondents say their organizations still do not have, or are unaware of, data security plans to help address contingencies as they arise. Danger of unauthorized access. Less than a third of respondents encrypt data that is either stored or in motion, and at the same time, more than three-fifths say they send actual copies of enterprise production data to other sites inside and outside the enterprise. Privileged user misuse. Only about a third of respondents say they are able to prevent privileged users from abusing data, and most do not have, or are not aware of, ways to prevent access to sensitive data using spreadsheets or other ad hoc tools. Lack of consistent auditing. A majority of respondents actively collect native database audits, but there has not been an appreciable increase in the implementation of automated tools for comprehensive auditing and reporting across databases in the enterprise. IOUG RecommendationsThe report's author finds that securing data requires not just the ability to monitor and detect suspicious activity, but also to prevent the activity in the first place. To achieve this comprehensive approach, the report recommends the following. Apply an enterprise-wide security strategy. Database security requires multiple layers of defense that include a combination of preventive, detective, and administrative data security controls. Get business buy-in and support. Data security only works if it is backed through executive support. The business needs to help determine what protection levels should be attached to data stored in enterprise databases. Provide training and education. Often, business users are not familiar with the risks associated with data security. Beyond IT solutions, what is needed is a well-engaged and knowledgeable organization to help make security a reality. Read the IOUG Data Security Survey Now.

    Read the article

  • #altnetseattle &ndash; REST Services

    - by GeekAgilistMercenary
    Below are the notes I made in the REST Architecture Session I helped kick off with Andrew. RSS, ATOM, and such needed for better discovery.  i.e. there still is a need for some type of discovery. Difficult is modeling behaviors in a RESTful way.  ??  Invoking some type of state against an object.  For instance in the case of a POST vs. a GET.  The GET is easy, comes back as is, but what about a POST, which often changes some state or something. Challenge is doing multiple workflows with stateful workflows.  How does batch work.  Maybe model the batch as a resource. Frameworks aren’t particularly part of REST, REST is REST.  But point argued that REST is modeled, or part of modeling a state machine of some sort… ? Nothing is 100% reliable w/ REST – comparisons drawn with TCP/IP.  Sufficient probability is made however for the communications, but the idea of a possible failure has to be built into the usage model of REST. Ruby on Rails / RESTfully, and others used.  What were their issues, what do they do.  ATOM feeds, object serialized, using LINQ to XML w/ this.  No state machine libraries. Idempotent areas around REST and single change POST changes are inherent in the architecture. REST – one of the constrained languages is for the interaction w/ the system.  Limiting what can be done on the resources.  - disagreement, there is no agreed upon REST verbs. Sam Ruby – RESTful services.  Expanded the verbs within REST/HTTP pushes you off the web.  Of the existing verbs POST leaves the most up for debate. Robert Reem used Factory to deal with the POST to handle the new state.  The POST identifying what it just did by the return. Different states are put into POST, so that new prospective verbs, without creating verbs for REST/HTTP can be used to advantage without breaking universal clients. Biggest issue with REST services is their lack of state, yet it is also one of their biggest strengths.  What happens is that the client takes up the often onerous task of handling all state, state machines, and other extraneous resource management.  All the GETs, POSTs, DELETEs, INSERTs get all pushed into abstraction.  My 2 cents is that this in a way ends up pushing a huge proprietary burden onto the REST services often removing the point of REST to be simple and to the point. WADL does provide discovery and some state control (sort of?) Statement made, "WADL" isn't needed.  The JSON, XML, or other client side returned data handles this. I then applied the law of 2 feet rule for myself and headed to finish up these notes, post to the Wiki, and figure out what I was going to do next.  For the original Wiki entry check it out here. I will be adding more to this post with a subsequent post.  Please do feel free to post your thoughts and ideas about this, as I am sure everyone in the session will have more for elaboration.

    Read the article

  • Enterprise Integration: Can Companies Afford It?

    - by Ralph Wheaton
    Each year, my company holds a global sales conference where employees and partners from around the world some together to collaborate, share knowledge and ideas and learn about future plans.  As a member of the professional services division, several of us had been asked to make a presentation, an elevator pitch in 3 minutes or less that relates to a success we have worked on or directly relates to our tag (that is, our primary technology focus).  Mine happens to be Enterprise Integration as it relates Business Intelligence.  I found it rather difficult to present that pitch in a short amount of time and had to pare it down.  At any rate, in just a little over 3 minutes, this is the presentation I submitted.  Here is a link to the full presentation video in WMV format.   Many companies today subscribe to a buy versus build mentality in an attempt to drive down costs and improve time to implementation. Sometimes this makes sense, especially as it relates to specialized software or software that performs a small number of tasks extremely well. However, if not carefully considered or planned out, this oftentimes leads to multiple disparate systems with silos of data or multiple versions of the same data. For instance, client data (contact information, addresses, phone numbers, opportunities, sales) stored in your CRM system may not play well with Accounts Receivables. Employee data may be stored across multiple systems such as HR, Time Entry and Payroll. Other data (such as member data) may not originate internally, but be provided by multiple outside sources in multiple formats. And to top it all off, some data may have to be manually entered into multiple systems to keep it all synchronized. When left to grow out of control like this, overall performance is lacking, stability is questionable and maintenance is frequent and costly. Worse yet, in many cases, this topology, this hodgepodge of data creates a reporting nightmare. Decision makers are forced to try to put together pieces of the puzzle attempting to find the information they need, wading through multiple systems to find what they think is the single version of the truth. More often than not, they find they are missing pieces, pieces that may be crucial to growing the business rather than closing the business. across applications. Master data owners are defined to establish single sources of data (such as the CRM system owns client data). Other systems subscribe to the master data and changes are replicated to subscribers as they are made. This can be one way (no changes are allowed on the subscriber systems) or bi-directional. But at all times, the master data owner is current or up to date. And all data, whether internal or external, use the same processes and methods to move data from one place to another, leveraging the same validations, lookups and transformations enterprise wide, eliminating inconsistencies and siloed data. Once implemented, an enterprise integration solution improves performance and stability by reducing the number of moving parts and eliminating inconsistent data. Overall maintenance costs are mitigated by reducing touch points or the number of places that require modification when a business rule is changed or another data element is added. Most importantly, however, now decision makers can easily extract and piece together the information they need to grow their business, improve customer satisfaction and so on. So, in implementing an enterprise integration solution, companies can position themselves for the future, allowing for easy transition to data marts, data warehousing and, ultimately, business intelligence. Along this path, companies can achieve growth in size, intelligence and complexity. Truly, the question is not can companies afford to implement an enterprise integration solution, but can they afford not to.   Ralph Wheaton Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist Microsoft Certified Professional Developer Microsoft VTS-P BizTalk, .Net

    Read the article

  • How far is too far?

    - by David Dorf
    Previously I've talked about Safeway's personalized pricing as well as Target's use of analytics to learn about customers.  Then last week I read about Orbitz tailoring their hotel offers based on the browser used.  (Orbitz claims that Mac users are 40% more likely than PC users to book four- or five-star hotels.)  So just how far is too far when tailoring the retail experience? When most consumers read about these types of tactics, they tend to feel violated, as if someone was reading their personal diary.  Nobody wants to be tricked into buying things.  Walking into a grocery store and seeing crates of apples stacked high looks enticing, but the crates are just for display and the apples may be over a year old.  Even though its much cheaper to print markdown tags, many retailers manually write the price tags because consumers think they deal is better if the price is hand-written. The technology already exists to personalize prices and experiences for consumers.  People get upset thinking they paid more for something than a neighbor, but it already happens all the time with cars, flights, and the use of loyalty programs and coupons. There are many variables at play for any purchase.  They only difference is that the customer segments are getting smaller, sometimes reaching a size of one. There's two ways to look at this.  Retailers have always manipulated the environment to get consumers to buy more -- or -- Retailers are getting better at tuning the shopping experience for consumers.  I choose the latter, and so do most consumers by spending their money in the stores they like.  Consumers like to see fresh flowers at the entrance to the grocery store, and they like to see specials scrawled on chalkboards. The key is making sure that consumers benefit from the experience as well.  I'm willing to give up some personal information in exchange for discounts and more relevant marketing, and the next-generation of shoppers are even less concerned about privacy.  Retailers need to use all the tools available to differentiate their offers and connect with their customers. So if Orbitz wants to put three-star hotels at the top of the list for me because I'm using a PC, that's fine by me.

    Read the article

  • More Changes...

    - by MOSSLover
    Stuff has changed drastically for me in the past two to three years.  I moved over 1000 miles from Saint Louis.  I go outside and I get up in front of crowds with less issues.  Now I'm changing jobs again.  I'm not really sure what to say here.  I was obviously unhappy and I needed to do something different.  So quit two days ago and I guess it worked out that I end with B&R this Friday, then head to TEC and SPS Huntsville and a week from this Monday I start my new job at Gig Werks.  I'm not sure what to expect or where I'm heading, but I think it's a step in the right direction.  I won't really know what kind of impact this will have on my life for at least another 6 months to a year. For some reason I can't sleep tonight and I think it's really a reflection of my last day.  Tomorrow is an ending and a beginning at the same time.  So it's both kind of sad and exciting.  I don't know why I'm really excited to go to Disney Land for the second time ever in my life time.  I get to ride the Teacups.  For the longest time when I was a kid I wanted to go to Disney Land.  I wanted to ride the teacups.  In 2007, at the age of 25, I rode the teacups for my first ever visit to LA.  That was the start of finally syncing up with my childhood goals.  I wanted to live near a major city.  I wanted to visit all the major cities in the world.  I wanted to see everything and meet everyone.  This job change will probably turn into something great I just don't know it yet.  I'm walking again outside my comfort zone and stepping into uncharted territory.  In 2-3 years I'll probably write another blog post how this week lead to something great.  It just stinks when you have to leave behind something you know and love.  I will miss all my current colleagues, but I'm sure I'll gain some new ones and keep in touch with the old.  To 2010 being a great year for change and hopefully by the end of the year I can say I went to Europe.  To reaching my goals and my dreams.  Don't let anyone stop you from getting what you want in life (unless you are axe murderer please don't kill anyone that's just wrong).  Have a good weekend everyone!

    Read the article

  • ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for 2012-06-22

    - by Bob Rhubart
    Guide to integration architecture | Stephanie Mann "The landscape of integration architecture is shifting as service-oriented and cloud-based architecture take the fore," says Stephanie Mann. "To ensure success, enterprise architects and developers are turning to lighter-weight infrastructure to support more complex integration projects." FY13 Oracle PartnerNetwork Kickoff - Tues June 26, 2012 Join us for a one-hour live online event hosted by the Oracle PartnerNetwork team as we kickoff FY13. Other dates/times for EMEA/LAD/JAPAN/APAC. Click the link for details. Why should you choose Oracle WebLogic 12c instead of JBoss EAP 6? | Ricardo Ferreira Okay, you would expect an Oracle guy to make this argument. But Ferreira takes a very deep, very detailed technical dive into the issue. So hear the man out, will ya? Hibernate4 and Coherence | Rene van Wijk According to Oracle ACE Rene van Wijk, "there are two ways to integrate Hibernate and Coherence." In this post he illustrates one of them. Simple Made Easy | Rich Hickey Rich Hickey discusses simplicity, why it is important, how to achieve it in design and how to recognize its absence in the tools, language constructs and libraries in this presentation from QCon London 2012. Starting a cluster | Mark Nelson Fusion Middleware A-Team blogger Mark Nelson looks at Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle BPM, and Oracle Coherence, three products that are " commonly clustered, and which have somewhat different requirements." Why building SaaS well means giving up your servers | GigaOM The biggest benefit to PaaS, reports GigaOM's Derrick Harris, "might be a better product because the company is able to focus on building the app rather than managing servers." Personas - what, why & how | Mascha van Oosterhout "To be able to create a successful, user-friendly website or application," says Mascha van Oosterhout, "every decision you take, whether you are part of the marketing team, the design team or the development team, should be based on what you know about the user." Thought for the Day "Machines take me by surprise with great frequency." — Alan Turing(June 23, 1912 - June 7, 1954) Source: Brainy Quote

    Read the article

  • To Serve Man?

    - by Dave Convery
    Since the announcement of Windows 8 and its 'Metro' interface, the .NET community has wondered if the skills they've spent so long developing might be swept aside,in favour of HTML5 and JavaScript. Mercifully, that only seems to be true of SilverLight (as Simon Cooper points out), but it did leave me thinking how easy it is to impose a technology upon people without directly serving their needs. Case in point: QR codes. Once, probably, benign in purpose, they seem to have become a marketer's tool for determining when someone has engaged with an advert in the real world, with the same certainty as is possible online. Nobody really wants to use QR codes - it's far too much hassle. But advertisers want that data - they want to know that someone actually read their billboard / poster / cereal box, and so this flawed technology is suddenly everywhere, providing little to no value to the people who are actually meant to use it. What about 3D cinema? Profits from the film industry have been steadily increasing throughout the period that digital piracy and mass sharing has been possible, yet the industry cinema chains have forced 3D films upon a broadly uninterested audience, as a way of providing more purpose to going to a cinema, rather than watching it at home. Despite advances in digital projection, 3D cinema is scarcely more immersive to us than were William Castle's hoary old tricks of skeletons on wires and buzzing chairs were to our grandparents. iTunes - originally just a piece of software that catalogued and ripped music for you, but which is now multi-purpose bloatware; a massive, system-hogging behemoth. If it was being built for the people that used it, it would have been split into three or more separate pieces of software long ago. But as bloatware, it serves Apple primarily rather than us, stuffed with Music, Video, Various stores and phone / iPad management all bolted into one. Why? It's because, that way, you're more likely to bump into something you want to buy. You can't even buy a new laptop without finding that a significant chunk of your hard drive has been sold to 'select partners' - advertisers, suppliers of virus-busting software, and endless bloatware-flogging pop-ups that make using a new laptop without reformatting the hard drive like stepping back in time. The product you want is not the one you paid for. This is without even looking at services like Facebook and Klout, who provide a notional service with the intention of slurping up as much data about you as possible (in Klout's case, whether you create an account with them or not). What technologies do you find annoying or intrusive, and who benefits from keeping them around?

    Read the article

< Previous Page | 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342  | Next Page >