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• Virutal Machine loses network connectivity on Hyper V

  - by Chris W

  We're running a number of VMs on a 6 node failover cluster of blades using Hyper V. We have an intermittent issue (every few days at different times - not a fixed frequency) of VMs losing network connectivity. Console access to the VM suggests all is fine and the underlying blade has normal connectivity. To resolve the problem we either have to re-start the VM or, more usually, we do a live migration to another blade which fires up connectivity and we then migrate it back to the original blade. I've had 3 instances of this happen with a specific VM running on a particular blade however it has happened once with a different VM running on a different blade. All VMs and blades have the same basic setup and are running Windows 2008 R2. Any ideas where I should be looking to diagnose the possible causes of this problem as the event logs provide no help?

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• Securing Back End API for Mobile Applications

  - by El Guapo

  I have an application that I am writing for both iOS and Android; this application will be served by a ReSTFUL API running on a cluster of servers on "the internets". I am curious how the rest of the world is going about securing their APIs so only specific applications running on iOS or Android can use these APIs. I could go the same route as other OAuth providers by providing a key/secret combination (2-legged OAuth), however, what do I do if I ever have to change these keys??? Do I create a new key/secret for every person that downloads the app??? The application is a social-based game that will allow the user to interact with other "participants" in the game based on location, achievements, etc. The API will provide the following functions: -Questions, Quests, etc -Profile Management -User Interaction -Possible Social Interaction Once the app gains traction I plan on opening up the API ala Facebook, Twitter, etc. Which is easy enough, I plan on implementing an OAuth Server and whatnot. However, I want to make sure, during this phase, that only people who are using the application can access and use the API.

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• What is "WinZip Registry Optimizer" and whatever happened to WinZip?

  - by Aerovistae

  So some file the other day told me I needed something like WinZip to unzip it. I was tired and didn't think about what I was doing as I cheerfully downloaded it, because I remember years and years ago I used to use it all the time. But then I found it barely worked at all in the first place, would only work for a few days before I had to start paying for it, and worst of all, forced a supplementary install of something called "WinZip Registry Optimizer." After installing 7-zip and getting rid of WinZip, I found this Registry Optimizer continually popping up and telling me my computer was loaded with viruses and errors and I just had to buy it. This obviously means the Optimizer is a virus unto itself, and I uninstalled it from the control panel. But still, it bothers me. I googled it and found the WinZip site proudly offering downloads of this program, this spamware. What happened? Why has a once-mainstream software developer been reduced to this?

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• Java HttpURLConnection class Program

  - by pandu

  I am learning java. Here is the sample code of HttpURLConnection class usage in some text book import java.net.*; import java.io.*; import java.util.*; class HttpURLDemo { public static void main(String args[]) throws Exception { URL hp = new URL("http://www.google.com"); HttpURLConnection hpCon = (HttpURLConnection) hp.openConnection(); // Display request method. System.out.println("Request method is " + hpCon.getRequestMethod()); // Display response code. System.out.println("Response code is " + hpCon.getResponseCode()); // Display response message. System.out.println("Response Message is " + hpCon.getResponseMessage()); // Get a list of the header fields and a set // of the header keys. Map<String, List<String>> hdrMap = hpCon.getHeaderFields(); Set<String> hdrField = hdrMap.keySet(); System.out.println("\nHere is the header:"); // Display all header keys and values. for(String k : hdrField) { System.out.println("Key: " + k + " Value: " + hdrMap.get(k)); } } } Question is Why hpCon Object is declared in the following way? HttpURLConnection hpCon = (HttpURLConnection) hp.openConnection(); instead of declaring like this HttpURLConnection hpCon = new HttpURLConnection(); Author provided the following explanation. I cant understand Java provides a subclass of URLConnection that provides support for HTTP connections. This class is called HttpURLConnection. You obtain an HttpURLConnection in the same way just shown, by calling openConnection( ) on a URL object, but you must cast the result to HttpURLConnection. (Of course, you must make sure that you are actually opening an HTTP connection.) Once you have obtained a reference to an HttpURLConnection object, you can use any of the methods inherited from URLConnection

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• Improving SpriteBatch performance for tiles

  - by Richard Rast

  I realize this is a variation on what has got to be a common question, but after reading several (good answers) I'm no closer to a solution here. So here's my situation: I'm making a 2D game which has (among some other things) a tiled world, and so, drawing this world implies drawing a jillion tiles each frame (depending on resolution: it's roughly a 64x32 tile with some transparency). Now I want the user to be able to maximize the game (or fullscreen mode, actually, as its a bit more efficient) and instead of scaling textures (bleagh) this will just allow lots and lots of tiles to be shown at once. Which is great! But it turns out this makes upward of 2000 tiles on the screen each time, and this is framerate-limiting (I've commented out enough other parts of the game to make sure this is the bottleneck). It gets worse if I use multiple source rectangles on the same texture (I use a tilesheet; I believe changing textures entirely makes things worse), or if you tint the tiles, or whatever. So, the general question is this: What are some general methods for improving the drawing of thousands of repetitive sprites? Answers pertaining to XNA's SpriteBatch would be helpful but I'm equally happy with general theory. Also, any tricks pertaining to this situation in particular (drawing a tiled world efficiently) are also welcome. I really do want to draw all of them, though, and I need the SpriteMode.BackToFront to be active, because

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• How to Create a Minimize All Windows (Win + M) Hotkey for Mac OS X

  - by The Geek

  Windows users have been able to minimize every window on their desktop ever since keyboards with the Win key started showing up — just tap WIN + M on your keyboard, and every window is minimized. For Mac OS X, it’s not quite as simple. You can, of course, use the CMD + OPT + H + M shortcut key combination to hide most windows… but that’s a lot of keys to hit at once, and it doesn’t always minimize everything in my experience. So like everything else I wanted from Windows, it was time to figure out how to get it on OS X as well. This method uses QuickSilver to provide the shortcut key trigger — if there’s a better way to do that, please let us know. Luckily OS X includes a nice scripting platform, and we can use the following script from a helpful person over at SuperUser to make this all happen. tell application "Finder" to activate tell application "System Events" tell application process "Finder" tell menu bar 1 click menu item "Hide Others" of menu of menu bar item "Finder" click menu item "Minimize All" of menu of menu bar item "Window" end tell end tell end tell Open up a new AppleScript Editor window and paste in the script from above. Then go to File and Save.    

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• Is Joel Test really a good gauging tool?

  - by henry

  I just learned about Joel Test. I have been computer programmer for 22 years, but somehow never heard about it before. I consider my best job so far to be this small investment managing company with 30 employees and only 3 people in IT department. I am no longer with them but I had being working there for 5 years – my longest streak with any given company. To my surprise they scored extremely poor on Joel Test. The only two questions I would answer “yes” are #4: Do you have a bug database? And #9: Do you use the best tools money can buy? Everything else is either “sometimes” or straight “no”. Here is what I liked about the company however: a) Good pay, they bragged about it to my face and I bragged about it to their face, so it was almost like a family environment. b) I always knew big picture. When writing a code to solve particular problem there were no ambiguity about the business nature of that problem. Even though we did not always had written specs we could ask business users a question anytime, often yelling it across the floor. I could even talk to executives any time I felt like doing it: no appointment necessary. c) Immediate feedback. Once we implement a solution and make business users happy they immediately let us know that, we (programmers) become heroes of the moment. d) No red tape. I could always buy any tools I deem necessary, and design solutions the way my professional judgment dictates. e) Flexibility. If I had mid-day dental appointment that is near my house rather than near the office, I would send email to the company: "FYI: I work from home today". As long as one of 3 IT guys was on the floor (to help traders in case their monitors go dark) they did not care where 2 others are. So the question thus becomes how valuable Joel Test is? Why bother with it?

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• Samsung printer (ML-1640) margin problem

  - by Rytis

  I just got a new laser printer, Samsung ML-1640, and it has once again confirmed my experience that Samsung printers suck badly. The printer prints fine, except that the top margin is set at random, usually very small, cutting text on the top of page off. I tried updating firmware, getting new drivers, but nothing helped. I tried changing paper types, and it seemed that with the paper set as "plain" it was OK, but I just tried printing again after letting the printer rest for the night, and wasted 6 pages until I managed to print 2 boarding passes... Is there anything else I could try to resolve the issue?

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• As a solo programmer, of what use can Gerrit be?

  - by s.d

  Disclaimer: I'm aware of the questions How do I review my own code? and What advantages do continuous integration tools offer on a solo project?. I do feel that this question aims at a different set of answers though, as it is about a specific software, and not about general musings about the use of this or that practice or tech stack. I'm a solo programmer for an Eclipse RCP-based project. To be able to control myself and the quality of my software, I'm in the process of setting up a CSI stack. In this, I follow the Eclipse Common Build Infrastructure guidelines, with the exception that I will use Jenkins rather than Hudson. Sticking to these guidelines will hopefully help me in getting used to the Eclipse way of doing things, and I hope to be able to contribute some code to Eclipse in the future. However, CBI includes Gerrit, a code review software. While I think it's really helpful for teams, and I will employ it as soon as the team grows to at least two developers, I'm wondering how I could use it while I'm still solo. Question: Is there a use case for Gerrit that takes into account solo developers? Notes: I can imagine reviewing code myself after a certain amount of time to gain a little distance to it. This does complicate the workflow though, as code will only be built once it's been passed through code review. This might prove to be a "trap" as I might be tempted to quickly push bad code through Gerrit just to get it built. I'm very interested in hearing how other solo devs have made use of Gerrit.

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• How many times can data be read from a USB flash drive?

  - by John

  While I am aware that performing writes on a USB flash drive degrades the life expectancy of the device. I have heard the quantity of writes is anywhere from 100 thousand to 10 million, but I have not heard about number of read operations. Does reading from the device count toward this total? I am interested in writing only once to a flash drive and setting it to read-only. Then reading files from the device a thousand or more times per day, but am wondering if (at say 1,000 reads per day), the flash drive will need to be replaced within 100 days (assuming a 100,000 r/w cycle lifetime)?

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• Using JuJu with private Openstack cloud deployment?

  - by user76054

  I'm seeing a number of problems trying to use JuJu with our internally deployed Openstack cloud. Most of this appears to be centered around DNS host resolution as well as the need to deal with our company's internal HTTP proxies. Our Openstack deployment relies upon an unroutable 172.16.0.0/12 block of addresses for VLAN allocation to each project (tenant) hosted on our internal cloud. User's have the option of assigning one or more floating addresses to instances, allocated from a block of routable addresses on our internal companies LAN. Currently, Openstack doesn't register instance names with anything other than the DNSMASQ service running on the cloud controller. As such, there's no way to resolve this address through our internal DNS hierarchy (this issue has already been reported as Bug #945505). As such, even though I can bootstrap my JuJu server node, I can't connect to it with the JuJu client, since it can't resolve the local (private) network name. I am able to ssh to the node, once I've assigned it an internally routable (i.e. floating) address. Which leads to the next issue. Next, to install software on an instance running in our cloud, it must have our internal proxy address defined - either in the apt.conf file or via environment variables. Unfortunately, when bootstrapping the server node, there's no provision to pass this info into a instance via JuJu environment.yaml file (if this is even the best way to handle this issue). As a result, the bootstrap node is unable to install the required packages. I'm assuming (dangerous, I know) that the way that I've deployed Openstack in our internal environment is probably not unique. Has anyone else encountered these issues? And more importantly, are work arounds available? Regards, Ross

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• Search multiple search engines with a single keyword at the same time in Chrome?

  - by cptloop

  I want to search multiple websites at once by using a keyword trigger in Google Chrome. I am trying to achieve this with Javascript as described in this topic over at mozillazine. This is the code that supposedly works in Firefox: javascript:void(window.open('http://www.google.com/search?q=%s'));void(window.open('http://www.altavista.com/web/results?q=%s')) I have tried to insert this code into the "URL with %s in place of query" but nothing happens when I invoke it. Is it possible to get this to work this way or another in Chrome?

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• Mysterious problem...can remotely connect to a system but can't browse back out.

  - by GregH

  I have LogMeIn installed on my home system. I went on travel and my wife called saying that none of our home systems could browse the internet. I thought I would try to connect to my home system using logmein. Surprisingly, I was able to connect to my home system and log in without any problems using logmein. When I opened a browser from my home system, I indeed could not browse. I opened a command prompt and tried to ping my router (192.168.1.1) and it failed/timed out. How is this possible? I can remotely connect to my system but once logged in cannot even ping my router. What's up with that?

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• Defragment / Performance Monitor without Task Scheduler

  - by mjaggard

  My organisation has a policy of disabling Task Scheduler on all servers and workstations (don't ask, I tried once to wrestle the pig). I need to collect performance stats using Data Collector Sets in Windows 7 or Windows 2008 but the Performance Monitor interface requires Task Scheduler to be running. Is this possible because I'm not trying to schedule anything (except the collection of WMI information every 15 seconds but I doubt it hands that task off to the task scheduler)? Is there any way to trick it into thinking Task Scheduler is running? If not, is there any way to temporarily override the group policy to allow Task Scheduler to run? I've found that most group policy can be overridden in this way by an Administrator by editing the registry. On exactly the same vein, I want to defragment a hard disk on one of my workstations, but I can't get it to start because of the dependancy on Task Scheduler - is it possible to overcome this?

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• JDeveloper Users - We Want to Hear Your Opinion

  - by Shay Shmeltzer

  One of our goals as product managers is to make sure that customers are happy with the product we deliver. We only get to interact with a small number of developers in a face-to-face way and get feedback and there are a lot of other developers who we don't get a chance to meet. To try and get more complete input, we created an online survey that will help us learn about usage patterns and the level of satisfaction JDeveloper users have with various features and aspects of their work with the tool.  It would be great if you could take 5 minutes and complete this online survey here. The survey is aimed at anyone using JDeveloper, whether for ADF development or any other type of development and for any version.  Hopefully this survey will help us deliver a product that better answers your needs and will help us make your JDeveloper usage experience better. Note - this is a new survey which is unrelated to the previous one that was focused on learning needs. Once you are done with this survey and if you would like to provide more feedback, note that we are also looking specifically for Java developers who are using Mac, as well as developers who are interested in building extensions to JDeveloper. 

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• Windows Azure Database (SQL Azure) Development Tip

  - by BuckWoody

  When you create something in the cloud, it's real, and you're charged for it. There are free offerings, and you even get free resources with your Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) subscription, but there are limits within those. Creating a 1 GB database - even with nothing in it - is a 1 GB Database. If you create it, drop it, and create it again 2 minutes later, that's 2 GB of space you've used for the month. Wait - how do I develop in this kind of situation? With Windows Azure, you can simply install the free Software Development Kit (SDK) and develop your entire application for free - you need never even log in to Windows Azure to code. Once you're done, you simply deploy the app and you start making money from the application as you're paying for it. Windows Azure Databases (The Artist Formerly Known As SQL Azure) is a bit different. It's not emulated in the SDK - because it doesn't have to be. It's just SQL Server, with some differences in feature set. To develop in this environment, you can use SQL Server, any edition. Be aware of the feature differences, of course, but just develop away - even in the free "Express" or LocalDB flavors - and then right-click in SQL Server Management Studio to script objects. Script the database, but change the "Advanced" selection to the Engine Type of "SQL Azure". Bing. Although most all T-SQL ports directly, one thing to keep in mind is that you need a Clustered Index on every table. Often the Primary Key (PK) is a good choice for that.

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• Ubuntu Not Starting After Installing Software Updates

  - by Prabhu

  I just did a software update on my Ubuntu 9.10, after that it asked me to restart my system which i did and once i did that, grub opend some simple bash shell or something... i dont know how do i run ubuntu now??? Ubuntu 9.10 was installed 1 week back using the wubi installer... which is like a one click install from windows... it is installed on the same partition as winxp... i chose 12 gb hd space while installing ubuntu.. it was working good for 1 week... i decided to do the software updates today morning and now its not even starting!!!

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• Why doesn't update-manager allow me to upgrade distribution?

  - by spoulson

  I have an Ubuntu 9.04 PC behind a corporate firewall and proxy server. This requires that in order to get update-manager to fetch and apply updates, I must set the proxy and authentication settings in the Synaptic network configuration. Once done, I can check for updates and things work smoothly (except I don't get popup notifications of new updates, must manually check periodically). However, distribution updates just don't show up in update-manager, such as the newly released 9.10 Karmic Koala. I had the same issue in upgrading 8.10 to 9.04 and solved it by downloading and upgrading from the 9.04 ISO. What do I need to do to upgrade to 9.10 using the standard update-manager UI?

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• Map /dev/bus/usb node to /sys node on Linux

  - by Cody Brocious

  I'm using libusb to find and access a USB device, but once I get the information I need from there, I need to map it to a /sys node. This could be to the actual USB bus it's on, the /sys/bus/usb-serial node (which is where I'm going to get eventually), or effectively anywhere else since I can walk the tree from there. I can get to a /dev/bus/usb node easily enough, but I'm a bit lost from there. What would be the best route to perform this mapping? Alternatively, a way to get the /dev/ttyUSB device node for a /dev/bus/usb node would work as well, since it gets me the same result.

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• Why SQL Developer Rocks for the Advanced User Too

  - by thatjeffsmith

  While SQL Developer may be ‘perfect for Oracle beginners,’ that doesn’t preclude advanced and intermediate users from getting their fair share of toys! I’ve been working with Oracle since the 7.3.4 days, and I think it’s pretty safe to say that the WAY an ‘old timer’ uses a tool like SQL Developer is radically different than the ‘beginner.’ If you’ve been reluctant to use SQL Developer because it’s a GUI, give me a few minutes to try to convince you it’s worth a second (or third) look. 1. Help when you want it, and only when you want it One of the biggest gripes any user has with a piece of software is when said software can’t get out of it’s own way. When you’re typing in a word processor, sometimes you can do without the grammar and spelling checks, the offer to auto-complete your words, and all of the additional mark-up. This drives folks to programs like Notepad++ and vi. You can disable the code insight feature so you can type unmolested by SQL Developer’s attempt to auto-complete your object names. Now, if you happen to come across a long or hard to spell object name, you can still invoke the feature on demand using Ctrl+Spacebar Code Editor – Completion Insight – Enable Completion Auto-Popup (Keyword being Auto) 2. Automatic File Tracking SQL*Minus is nice. Vi is cool. Notepad++ has a lot of features I like. But not too many editors offer automatic logging of changes to your files without having to setup a source control system. I was doing some work on my login.sql. I’m not doing anything crazy, but seeing what I had done in previous iterations was helpful. Now imagine how nice it would be to have this available for your l,000+ line scripts! Track your scripts as they change, no setup required! 3. Extend the Functionality Know SQL and XML? Wish SQL Developer did JUST a little bit more? Build your own extensions. You can have custom context menus and object pages in just a few minutes. This is an example of lazy developers writing code that write code. 4. Get Your Money’s Worth You’ve licensed Enterprise Edition. You got your Diagnostic and Tuning packs. Now start using them! Not everyone has access to Enterprise Manager, especially developers. But that doesn’t mean they don’t need help with troubleshooting and optimizing poorly performing SQL statements. ASH, AWR, Real-Time SQL Monitoring and the SQL Tuning Advisor are built into the Reports and Worksheet. Yes you could make the package calls, but that’s a whole lot of typing, and I’d rather just get to the results. 5. Profile, Debug, & Unit Testing PLSQL An Interactive Development Environment (IDE) built by the same folks that own the programming language (Hello – Oracle PLSQL!) should be complete. It should ‘hug’ the developer and empower them to churn out programs that work, run fast, and are easy to maintain. Write it, test it, debug it, and tune it. When you’re running your programs and you just want to see the data that’s returned, that shouldn’t require any special settings or workaround to make it happen either. Magic! And a whole lot more… I could go on and talk about the support for things like DataPump, RMAN, and DBMS_SCHEDULER, but you’re experts and you’re plenty busy. If you think SQL Developer is falling short somewhere, I want you to let us know about it.

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• Why are some seasoned ASP.NET developers defecting to Ruby on Rails?

  - by Tony_Henrich

  Once a while I hear some known ASP.NET developer declaring that they quit developing in .NET and moving to Ruby using Ruby in Rails. The problem is they don't mention exactly the reasons. They use words like RoR is 'easier', 'better' & 'faster'. That really doesn't say much to me. Anyone care to do faithful comparison using code samples, case studies ..etc or from personal experience in using both? Try to convince me to throw away all my years of learning C#, the .NET Framework using a powerful IDE (Visual Studio). Does RoR save you hours a week in development time? What are the major pain points in .NET that compels one to move away from it? This question is NOT about a pure RoR vs ASP.NET (MVC) comparison. It's about the compelling technical reasons (getting bored does not count!) to switch over after using a platform for several years and start with a new language and platform. (prefer this to be a wiki)

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• AppKata - Enter the next level of programming exercises

  - by Ralf Westphal

  Doing CodeKatas is all the rage lately. That´s great since widely accepted exercises are important to further the art. They provide a means of communication across platforms and allow to compare results which is part of any deliberate practice. But CodeKatas suffer from their size. They are intentionally small, so they can be done again and again. Repetition helps to build habit and to dig deeper. Over time ever new nuances of the problem or one´s approach become visible. On the other hand, though, their small size limits the methods, techniques, technologies that can be applied. To improve your TDD skills doing CodeKatas might be enough. But what about other skills? Developing on a software in a team, designing larger pieces of software, iteratively releasing software… all this and more is kinda hard to train using the tiny CodeKata problems. That´s why I´d like to present here another kind of kata I call Application Kata (or just AppKata). AppKatas are larger programming problems. They require the development of “whole” applications, i.e. not just one class or method, but bunches of classes accessible through a user interface. Also AppKata problems always are split into iterations. To get the most out of them, just look at the requirements of one iteration at a time. This way you´re closer to reality where requirements evolve in unexpected ways. So if you´re looking for more of a challenge for your software development skills, check out these AppKatas – or invent your own. AppKatas are platform independent like CodeKatas. Use whatever programming language and IDE you like. Also use whatever approach to software development you like. Just be sensitive to how easy it is to evolve your code across iterations. Reflect on what went well and what not. Compare your solutions with others. Or – for even more challenge – go for the “Coding Carousel” (see below). CSV Viewer An application to view CSV files. Sounds easy, but watch out! Requirements sometimes drastically change if the customer is happy with what you delivered. Iteration 1 Iteration 2 Iteration 3 Iteration 4 Iteration 5 (to come) Questionnaire If you like GUI programming, this AppKata might be for you. It´s about an app to let people fill out questionnaires. Also this problem might be interestin for you, if you´re into DDD. Iteration 1 Iteration 2 (to come) Iteration 3 (to come) Iteration 4 (to come) Tic Tac Toe For developers who like game programming. Although Tic Tac Toe is a trivial game, this AppKata poses some interesting infrastructure challenges. The GUI, however, stays simple; leave any 3D ambitions at home ;-) Iteration 1 Iteration 2 (to come) Iteration 3 (to come) Iteration 4 (to come) Iteration 5 (to come) Coding Carousel There are many ways you can do AppKatas. Work on them alone or in a team, pitch several devs against each other in an AppKata contest – or go around in a Coding Carousel. For the Coding Carousel you need at least 3 dev teams (regardless of size). All teams work on the same iteration at the same time. But here´s the trick: After each iteration the teams swap their code. Whatever they did for iteration n will be the basis for changes another team has to apply in iteration n+1. The code is going around the teams like in a carousel. I promise you, that´s gonna be fun! :-)

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• Import GraphViz graph to Microsoft Word 14

  - by rmetzger

  I have created a GraphViz dot-file to visualize a data flow. I have to write a documentation using Microsoft Word and I'd like to include the graph in the document. For some wired reason, MS Word is not able to import SVG files. Then, I generated a .eps file using dot -Teps plan.dot -o plan.eps But once imported into Word, the picture looks horrible. I also tried to convert the svg to wmf using Inkscape. It also looked horrible. Is there a clean way to generate a file using GraphViz that Word can read?

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• Smooth Sailing or Rough Waters: Navigating Policy Administration Modernization

  - by helen.pitts(at)oracle.com

  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:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Life insurance and annuity carriers continue to recognize the need to modernize their aging policy administration systems, but may be hesitant to move forward because of the inherent risk involved. To help carriers better prepare for what lies ahead LOMA's Resource Magazine asked Karen Furtado, partner of Strategy Meets Action, to help them chart a course in Navigating Policy Administration Selection, the cover story of this month’s issue. The industry analyst and research firm recently asked insurance carriers to name the business drivers for replacing legacy policy administration systems. The top five cited, according to Furtado, centered on: Supporting growth in current lines Improving competitive position Containing and reducing costs Supporting growth in new lines Supporting agent demands and interaction It’s no surprise that fueling growth, both now and in the future, continues to be a key driver for modernization. Why? Inflexible, hard-coded, legacy systems require customization by IT every time a change is required. This in turn impedes a carrier’s ability to be agile, constraining their ability to quickly adapt to changing regulatory requirements and evolving market demands. It also stymies their ability to quickly bring to market new products or rapidly configure changes to existing ones, and also can inhibit how carriers service customers and distribution channels. In the article, Furtado advised carriers to ensure that the policy administration system they are considering is current and modern, with an adaptable user interface and flexible service-oriented architecture. She said carriers to should ask themselves, “How much do you need flexibility and agility now and in the future? Does it support the business processes and rules that are needed for you to be able to create that adaptable environment?” Furtado went on to advise that carriers “Connect your strategy to your business and technical capabilities before you make investment choices…You want to enable your organization to transform for the future, not just automate the past.” Unlocking High Performance with Policy Administration Transformation also was the topic of a recent LOMA webcast moderated by Ron Clark, editor of LOMA's Resource Magazine. The web cast, which featured speakers from Oracle Insurance and Capgemini, focused on how insurers can competitively drive high performance by: Replacing a legacy policy administration system with a modern, flexible platform Optimizing IT and operations costs, creating consistent processes and eliminating resource redundancies Selecting the right partner with the best blend of technology, operational, and consulting capabilities to achieve market leadership Understanding the value of outsourcing closed block operations Learn more by clicking here to access this free, one-hour recorded webcast. Helen Pitts, is senior product marketing manager for Oracle Insurance's life and annuities solutions.

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• What is the best way to clone Win7 machines?

  - by John Hoge

  I'm looking to buy 5 new Win7 boxes and would like to ease deployment by cloning the OS. What I would like to do is install a fresh OS (Dell doesn't seem to sell machines without preinstalled crapware anymore) and then install a few apps on the first one. Once it is just right, I want to clone the OS and install the image on the other four machines and just change the machine name. Is this possible to do without any extra third party software? What I am thinking of doing is backing up the disk image of the first machine to a network share, and then booting the others to the windows install DVD and restoring the same image on each machine. Has anyone had any luck with this technique?

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