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  • I'm hoping to start an online supermarket and needs advice on open source shopping cart software and applications..

    - by Betterman Simidi
    I have been researching on both open source software and off-the-shelf software for an online supermarket project in Africa. I have now narrowed by search to X-cart and the PHP based PrestaShop shopping carts. My plan is to acquire an open source shopping cart either by purchasing or as a free open source cart and hire a local developer to customize it to our local needs. I have been doing the demo for x-cart for three weeks now and had thought it might work best for us but after going through the 600 page manual and I'm concerned with how far it can be localized. Yesterday i was looking at the possible Prestashop free open source cart and i seem to like the back-end. Didn't like the back-end for Magento much but from reviews conducted by third-parties they seem to recommend it. I'm now wondering whether i should have a developer start the whole project from scratch, or use an open source software such us PrestaShop or get x-cart which can then be customized. Note that my store will have thousands of products and services including groceries and so i want something that can handle upto 500,000 products and over. Kindly advice. 93276

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  • Heading Out to Oracle Open World

    - by rickramsey
    In case you haven't figured it out by now, Oracle reserves an awful lot of announcements for Oracle Open World. As a result, the show is always a lot of fun for geeks. What will the Oracle Solaris team have to say? Will the Oracle Linux team have any surprises? And what about Oracle hardware? For my part, I'll be one of the lizards at the OTN Lounge with the OTN crew, handing out t-shirts to system admins and developers, or anyone who is willing to impersonate one. I understand, not everyone can have the raw animal magnetism of a sysadmin, or the debonair sophistication of a C++ developer, so some of you have no choice but to pretend. I won't judge. I'll also be doing video interviews of as many techie people as I can corner. I've got more than 30 interviews already scheduled. Most of them will be 3-5 minutes long. I'll be asking our best technical minds what's cool about their latest technologies and what impact it will have on system admins or system developers. I'll be posting those videos here: Find OTN Systems Videos from Oracle Open World Here! We've got some great topics in mind. A dummies guide to hardware-assisted cryptography with Glenn Brunette. ZFS deduplication. The momentum building around Oracle Solaris 11, with Lynn Rohrer, plus conversations with partners who have deployed Oracle Solaris 11. Migrating to Oracle Database with SQL Developer. The whole database cloud thing. Oracle VM and, of course, Oracle Linux. So even if you can't be part of the fun, keep an eye out for the videos on our YouTube channel. - Rick Website Newsletter Facebook Twitter

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  • Welcome to the Red Gate BI Tools Team blog!

    - by BI Tools Team
    Welcome to the first ever post on the brand new Red Gate Business Intelligence Tools Team blog! About the team Nick Sutherland (product manager): After many years as a software developer and project manager, Nick took an MBA and turned to product marketing. SSAS Compare is his second lean startup product (the first being SQL Connect). Follow him on Twitter. David Pond (developer): Before he joined Red Gate in 2011, David made monitoring systems for Goodyear. Follow him on Twitter. Jonathan Watts (tester): Jonathan became a tester after finishing his media degree and joining Xerox. He joined Red Gate in 2004. Follow him on Twitter. James Duffy (technical author): After a spell as a writer in the video game industry, James lived briefly in Tokyo before returning to the UK to start at Red Gate. What we're working on We launched a beta of our first tool, SSAS Compare, last month. It works like SQL Compare but for SSAS cubes, letting you deploy just the changes you want. It's completely free (for now), so check it out. We're still working on it, and we're eager to hear what you think. We hope SSAS Compare will be the first of several tools Red Gate develops for BI professionals, so keep an eye out for more from us in the future. Why we need you This is your chance to help influence the course of SSAS Compare and our future BI tools. If you're a business intelligence specialist, we want to hear about the problems you face so we can build tools that solve them. What do you want to see? Tell us! We'll be posting more about SSAS Compare, business intelligence and our journey into BI in the coming days and weeks. Stay tuned!

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  • Dev Lead Job opening on my team

    My product unit (Parallel Developer Tools) is hiring a developer lead here in Redmond. This position is specifically on the debugger feature team that I "Program Manage".So, if you have what it takes and don't mind working with me every single day, click on the link below to read more and apply. You can also send me your resume and I'll make sure it gets to the right place and that you get a prompt response.There is a very long job description on the Microsoft careers site under job id 707388.Here is an excerpt from the middle (emphasis mine):"...We are in search of a talented and innovative senior lead software design engineer to own development of the debugging tools for data parallelism (including GP-GPU) and HPC Clusters being built by our team.To be successful, you need to be able to guide careers, design and architect well, communicate and share the best development practices, collaborate with your peers, contribute to the vision, and code significant portions of the solution. We want to hear from you if you're passionate about making your mark in the parallel development space, improving people, and building world-class tools."Responsibilities include:Managing a team of senior and junior developersDesign and coding high-quality software..."For the full background story, requirements, qualifications and responsibilities please visit the official page. Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

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  • Eclipse and Oracle Fusion Development - Free Virtual Event, July 10th

    - by Carlos Chang
      Below is one of many sessions covering Oracle Fusion Development.  It's a free virtual event on July 10. Live chats with Oracle's technical staff.  Check it out! Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse - ADF Development Oracle ADF Development has never been easier in Eclipse. During this session we will explore best practices to use standard Java EE technologies like EJBs and JPA to build rich ADF applications based on ADF Data Controls, Task Flows, and ADF Faces components all within Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse (OEPE) 12c. We will also look at how OEPE’s AppXRay technology enables developers to understand and visualize dependency relationships between ADF components, xml descriptors, and Java objects in order to drive validation, content assist, and refactoring. Free Virtual Developer Day - Fusion Middleware Development Join a free online developer day where you can learn about the various components that make up the Oracle Fusion Development platform including ADF, ADF Mobile, Oracle WebCenter Portal, Business Intelligence and more. Online seminars and hands-on labs available directly from your browser. Join us on July 10!  Register here. 

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  • 12.10 Wireless hotspot configuration and internet browsing - question

    - by Indian
    In our campus we have a leased line connection from a service provider, which has an external IP W.X.Y.Z. This connection is distributed from the server several sub-networks / subnets as follows: Faculty: 172.33....../ 255.255.0.0 Administration: 172.34......./255.255.255.0 Students: 172.35...../255.255.216.0 A student has a laptop with a fixed IP address 172.35.23.123 / 255.255.216.0 where the IP address is on the ethernet port. The gateways for internet access are 172.31.1.1 and 172.31.1.2. Further the student has a wireless port which is inaccessible in the hostel area. The OS of the student is Ubuntu 12.10. The student in the possession of an android phone on which he wishes to install specific software and therefore wishes to activate the internet therein. The student has already attempted the Wireless hotspot solution which works for 12.04 but has not been successful. Various instructions on the internet have helped the student to do the following Installation of dhcp server and hostapd: sudo apt-get install isc-dhcp-server sudo apt-get install hostapd File: /etc/network/interfaces auto lo iface lo inet loopback auto wlan0 iface wlan0 inet static address 10.10.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 dns-nameservers 172.31.1.1 172.31.1.2 File: /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf subnet 10.10.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 { range 10.10.0.2 10.10.0.4; option routers 10.10.0.1; option domain-name-servers 172.31.1.1 172.31.1.2; default-lease-time 6000; max-lease-time 72000; } File: /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf interface=wlan0 driver=nl80211 ssid=my_hotspot channel=1 hw_mode=g auth_algs=1 wpa=3 wpa_passphrase=1234567890 wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK wpa_pairwise=TKIP CCMP rsn_pairwise=CCMP File: /etc/default/hostapd RUN_DAEMON=”yes” DAEMON_CONF=”/etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf” DAEMON_OPTS=”-dd” File: /etc/default/isc-dhcp-server INTERFACES=”wlan0” File: /etc/rc.local iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -s 10.10.0.0/16 -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE exit 0 After all the configuration, the computer is restarted. The student can see that the hotspot named “my_hotspot” is available. The hotspot also awards an address to the android phone. The student will now be able to browse the internet.

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  • Publishing a game -- any way to target both WP7 and Win8 Store?

    - by Rei Miyasaka
    I'm at a dilemma which seems should soon become an important issue for a lot of developers. If I build a game in XNA, I won't be able to publish it on the Windows 8 Store, as it would be a classic application -- and classic applications can't be sold on the store. If I build a game in Metro DirectX, I would be able to sell it on the Store, but porting it to Windows Phone would involve porting it to Reach XNA, which in fact would likely involve more effort even than porting to OS X or Android -- both of which support C++. Of all the WinRT API that is supported on C++/JS/.NET, DirectX can only be programmed from C++. It's also unlikely that Microsoft will update Windows 7 or Vista to support the new DirectX features, although that would make the Metro DirectX the first new version of DirectX to stop supporting the immediate predecessor OS. If I build a game in Pre-Win8 DirectX 9/10/11, I won't be able to sell it on the Windows Store or Windows Phone, but I could sell it on something like Steam. It would also involve the most amount of manual plumbing. In fact, DirectWrite, despite being part of DirectX 11, doesn't talk to Direct3D. I'm getting really tired of all these restrictions -- artificial and otherwise -- and I'm coming to a point where I'm considering switching to a platform with a less fragmented API, like Android or Mac/iOS. As far as bringing a game into market goes, excluding the actual market share of any platforms that I might consider, what other factors would help me in making a decision? Just a few years ago this question was a lot easier to answer: if you were primarily concerned with Windows platforms, all you had to answer was whether you wanted DirectX, XNA, or something like SlimDX. If you made the wrong decision, no biggie -- all you really would have lost is XBox and the fairly small Windows Phone market.

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  • USB Ports In Wrong Mode, How To Use usbmodeswitch?

    - by user86872
    I haven't had access to my USB ports as media devices for a couple days now. I've been reading and researching everything I can find but I can't find a good guide for usbmodeswtich or usbms that I can decipher. The USB's are fine for power, but won't support my android phone as a media device, which is killing me because I use adb everyday, and won't support my plug and play mouse any longer. Not sure what caused the switch, though I think it may be related to the suspend issue I've read about, but the solutions in those threads I read also didn't work. Below is my system information and details. System: Ubuntu 12.04, 64-bit, Dedicated Machine Machine: HP-Pavillion g6 notebook, AMD A6 Quad Core Processor USBs used for: Cooling dock, Android Debug Bridge, Wireless Mouse Attempted Mod Probe, udev restart, unable to attempt lsusb due to my own lack of knowledge. :) Last Attempt Readout: ncandiano@ncandiano-HP-Pavilion-g6-Notebook-PC:~$ sudo modprobe -r usbhid && sleep 5 && sudo modprobe usbhid ncandiano@ncandiano-HP-Pavilion-g6-Notebook-PC:~$ sudo modprobe -r usb-storage ncandiano@ncandiano-HP-Pavilion-g6-Notebook-PC:~$ sudo modprobe usb-storage ncandiano@ncandiano-HP-Pavilion-g6-Notebook-PC:~$ sudo restart udev udev start/running, process 2624 ncandiano@ncandiano-HP-Pavilion-g6-Notebook-PC:~$ lsusb Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 002 Device 002: ID 0461:4de7 Primax Electronics, Ltd webcam Any help would be greatly appreciated!

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  • What are some general guidelines for setting up an iOS project I will want to personally publish but sell in the future?

    - by RLH
    I have an idea for a personal iOS project that I would like to write and release to the iOS store. I'm the type of developer who enjoys developing and publishing. I want to write quality software and take care of my customers. Assuming that I wrote an application that had reasonable success, there is a fair chance that I would want to sell the ownership rights of the app to another party and I'd use the proceeds to develop my next personal project which, in turn, I'd probably want to sell in the future. With that said, what are some general guidelines for creating, making and publishing an iOS project that I will eventually want to transfer to another company/developer? I know this is a bit of a broad question, but I request that the given advice be a general list of tips, suggestions and pitfalls to avoid. If any particular bullet point on your list needs more explanation, I'll either search for the answer or post a new question specific to that requirement. Thank you! Note Regarding this Question I am posting this question on Programmers.SO because I think that this is an issue of software architecting, seeking advice for setting a new application project and publishing a project to the Apple iOS store-- all within the requirements for questions on this site.

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  • How to effectively design a piece of software

    - by ti83plus
    Im a compsci student and ive got some experience in various languages and paradigms c/java/python/ruby/html/css/scheme/sql/asp(classic). I realise that i want to have some software in my portfolio for future job hunting even tho i still have 2 years left of my education. Ive got a pretty good idea of what i want to make, its a webapp. Most shops around here are either .net or java and since i know java best and dont have access to ms developer tools im thinking i should go with java. Even tho i feel i know the principles of OOP pretty good ive got no clue how to go from my idea to a working solution. Where can i access information about designing the underlying architechture of my solution? Also i would like to know what other technologies i should train on, my current list includes javascript(and possibly a javascript library) some sort of java web framework tips are appreciated. I would like to add support for android/iphone apps in the future and this is something i have to take into account when designing the app. I have done a course on software engineering but i found this to be more centered around project management ideas then the actual design and implementation. So i would like tips on technologies i should focus on to get the most out of my time without the massive overhead of huge config processes but at the same time keep my project viable in a business sense, so that i use technologies that are relevant for business (java developer jobs). And i would also like tips on where i can learn more about the design process around a software project, i will be working mostly alone. But i find the approach ive used up until now (start coding and figure it out as you go) wont suffice.

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  • What is the target of Unity?

    - by burli
    First Unity was developed for Netbooks. But the Netbook Market is shrinking. Unity is not specialized for tablet pcs like Android 3, but it may work well with some specialized Apps for those devices. Unity is still nice for Notebooks with small displays, but there is no big advantage on the desktop compared with other desktop environments like Gnome 2/3 or KDE. So what's the point? My first suggenstion was a hybrid between tablet pc and a desktop, for example for a manager. He can plug the tablet in a docking station in his office and he can work at a normal desktop, whats not possible with iOS or Android. If he is in a meeting he can use it as a tablet to make notes, for example. Or if he is somewhere else outside the office or the company. Same for normal users. They can dock the tablet and use it like a normal desktop pc or they can lie on the couch and browse in the web, read a book or chat with friend. So, thats my suggestion. But what is the real plan for Unity or Ubuntu in general? I'm curious ;)

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  • Why do programmers write closed source applications and then make them free? [closed]

    - by Ken
    As an entrepreneur/programmer who makes a good living from writing and selling software, I'm dumbfounded as to why developers write applications and then put them up on the Internet for free. You've found yourself in one of the most lucrative fields in the world. A business with 99% profit margin, where you have no physical product but can name your price; a business where you can ship a buggy product and the customer will still buy it. Occasionally some of our software will get a free competitor, and I think, this guy is crazy. He could be making a good living off of this but instead chose to make it free. Do you not like giant piles of money? Are you not confident that people would pay for it? Are you afraid of having to support it? It's bad for the business of programming because now customers expect to be able to find a free solution to every problem. (I see tweets like "is there any good FREE software for XYZ? or do I need to pay $20 for that".) It's also bad for customers because the free solutions eventually break (because of a new OS or what have you) and since it's free, the developer has no reason to fix it. Customers end up with free but stale software that no longer works and never gets updated. Customer cries. Developer still working day job cries in their cubicle. What gives? PS: I'm not looking to start an open-source/software should be free kind of debate. I'm talking about when developers make a closed source application and make it free.

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  • How to Pin Any File to the Start Screen in Windows 8

    - by Taylor Gibb
    By default Windows 8 only allows you to pin a few file types to the Start Screen. Read on to find out how you can change that by editing the registry. How to Pin Any File to the Start Screen in Windows 8 Press the Win + R keyboard combination to open a run box, then type notepad and press enter. When notepad opens, paste the following into the new document: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\pintostartscreen] “MUIVerb”=”@shell32.dll,-51201″ “NeverDefault”=”" “Description”=”@shell32.dll,-51202″ “MultiSelectModel”=”Single” [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\pintostartscreen\command] “DelegateExecute”=”{470C0EBD-5D73-4d58-9CED-E91E22E23282}” Then click on the File menu item and select save as… Before you go any further, change the Save as type to All Files. Then give your file a name ending in .reg and click Save. PinToStartHack.reg To use the hack, just double click on the .reg file you just created. When you are prompted about whether you want to continue, click Yes. Now you can pin any file to the Start Screen. Undo the Change If you ever wish to undo the change, press the Win + R keyboard combination and type regedit, then press enter. Then drill down into: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\ Finally delete the pintostartscreen key. That’s all there is to it. How to Factory Reset Your Android Phone or Tablet When It Won’t Boot Our Geek Trivia App for Windows 8 is Now Available Everywhere How To Boot Your Android Phone or Tablet Into Safe Mode

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  • Review of TechEd 2012 - so far

    - by Stefan Barrett
    Disclaimer: probably going to next years TechEd.  (but not 100% sure) As with most TechEd's, this is not one of the best - but it's not bad.  Some impressions so far: The food is not bad, through perhaps not as much choice as in previous years.  The snacks, while a bit limited, are at least available.  The alumni lounge is ok, through perhaps not as good as last years.  Wifi is a bit worse than previous years - not really working in the big room, and a bit sporadic in the rest of the building. The device seems to make a big difference - the iPad seems to connect the easiest, while the iPhone & Lumia 800 are really struggling.  The real problem is the content - not as developer focused as in previous years.  This shows up in a number of different ways, for example while there is a visual studio booth, there is not much sign of anybody from the language teams.  This is one of few TechEd's where I don't feel very surprised about anything - seen most of the developer stuff in previews. One example where I was surprised was the pre-conf on c++ - its been years since I did any c++, but based on that session perhaps I should start again. While there are sessions, I'm not finding my schedule very challenged. For each time-slot there only seems to 1, or rarely 2, interesting sessions.  The focus seems to be on windows 8, Azure and the phone, which while interesting (might give win8 a go), are not enough.

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  • How to organize a larger project with several sub-projects and their dependencies?

    - by RoToRa
    As a software developer until now, I've mostly worked on projects that were quite "monolithic" with hardly any dependencies on other projects, without building automation (no Make, Ant, Maven, etc.) and kept on a simple version control system (mostly Subversion) with just a few easily managed version branches. Now together with some friends I'm planning a project that is intended to run on multiple platforms (mostly mobile: Android, iOS, Kindle, Windows, etc.), thus written in several languages and on different development platforms. This will lead to many dependencies: All projects sharing the same resources (e.g. images) or projects dependent on each other (e.g. a core Java library project used by the Android and other Java based implementations). So what I need is some basic information on how to answer questions such as: How would the VCS be structured? Would a client-base or a decentralized VCS be better? How to decide building automation system(s) to use? Since this quite an open question I guess for now it would be great if you could point me to any books or web resources that you can recommend for this topic.

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  • What advantages does developing applications for smartphones have over developing the same application as a web application?

    - by Alfredo O
    Let's take the Facebook application as an example. Why did they develop an application when the users could just access to their page and do the same? For me that represents more maintenance and more cost because for each feature added to the web application that feature will have to be added to the smartphone application as well. So why would I want to develop more than once (for each patform iOS, Android, etc) when I could just have one web application? What benefits do I get? The only one that comes to my mind is GPS feature. EDIT: My question is more oriented towards business applications that are going to be used only by some members of the company, it's not about selling the application (private use). So contrary to what some answers say about that by developing as a smartphone application it will benefit from more sells because of the "smartphone stores" for me this point is not important because the application is for private use. By developing the application as a web application it means that it can be accessed through smartphone browser and also in a PC (any capable browser), but developing as a native application would limit this to only some kind of smartphone so we would be limiting the use. On the other hand developing it as a web application means that in order to access the application an Internet connection must be available. So keeping this in mind how would you convince your boss to write the application for a given smartphone platform (iOS/Android) vs developing it as a web application?

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  • How do you communicate improvements in tools and process to the development team?

    - by birryree
    Hi everyone, My team does a lot of internal tooling and infrastructure work - you can think of us as a small scale version of the teams Facebook, Etsy, Netflix, etc. who build all the infrastructure for scaling their services up to thousands/tens of thousands of servers and supporting millions of users. Lately, we've been running full steam ahead improving much of the tools we use internally, like tools for automatically creating new servers, setting up new application instances, etc. An end result of this has been decreased developer frustration, but increased 'ignorance' by most of the developer team about how to use our tools correctly and effectively. More often than not, my team will be asked by other teams to help them use the tools. Solutions we've thought up or things already in place: All our code is relatively simple and self-explanatory, with good comments where necessary, so developers could read the scripts. Counterargument: You can guess this isn't a particularly good idea, having people read our tools' code to figure out how to use it. All our code is committed to Subversion with very detailed commit messages about changes, developers could read the commit emails. Counterargument: Expect the developers to read all our commits? Ludicrous. Wiki - we have an internal company wiki, that we try to maintain with up to date information, but as we are moving so fast, the wiki has to keep pace as well. Counterargument: As mentioned, we move fast in my team, as more improvements on our tools are added daily. Again still relies on people to read something that might change constantly. Email the team? We could email the team when we have a glut of improvements to communicate. So as you can all see, we are trying to find new ideas, and explore options we haven't thought of yet. Anyone else ever been in a similar situation and have some guidance?

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  • Office arangement - comfort vs. teamwork?

    - by finrod
    Our team works in an open-space office. Luckily the cubicles are quite big (L shaped tables for everyone!), there is quite a lot of space so we are not sandwiched. Without going into further detail, there are comfortable spots (window), normal spots and stupid spots (near the corridor). Until recently, the development team of twelve engineers was seated so that all types of spots were occupied and we were all close together. In the old arrangement, verbal communication was very easy - half of the team was withing talking distance. The other half was like ten steps away. Often times I could ask, discuss, solve problems without leaving the cube. Most of the communication is work related, no bullshit or mental masturbation that would unnecessarily distract others. Now we have moved to another part of the building and have larger space to occupy. At this point, everyone could pick their spot. Naturally all stupid spots are left empty (for the poor newcomers to occupy bwehaha). In the new arrangement, the development team is stretched across the floor and some of the key engineers are seated 'far' from each other - definitely not within talking distance. I have yet to experience how this works out but am getting concerned that team work and communication may have been traded for personal comfort. Finally the questions... What do you think is better office arrangement? Such that allows for free verbal communication but trading for some developer's comfort, or such that potentially hinders verbal communication but makes developer's more comfortable in their spot? Or maybe it does not matter at all and we will evolve to be efficient in any arrangement? What is your personal experience? Note - yes I read books and posts how workplace is important in our job. However in this case - we are all still in open space and the difference between the different spots are not really groundbreaking. So I'm thinking the little comfort that few developers gain is not worth the loss of easy communication.

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  • What is the proper response to lousy error message?

    - by William Pursell
    I've just come across (for the 47 millionth time) some code that looks like this: except IOError, e: print "Problems reading file: %s." % filename sys.exit( 1 ) My first reaction is very visceral: the person who coded this is a complete idiot. How hard is it to print error messages to stderr and to include the system error message in the string? I haven't used python in years, and it took me all of 4 minutes to track down the documentation to figure out how to get the error message from the exception object e and the syntax for printing to stderr. My "complete idiot" reaction was slightly lessened since at least a non-zero value is passed to sys.exit, but I still find this code offensive. My prime thought is that the developer who wrote this is a complete novice for whom I have zero respect. Am I over-reacting? Surely there are excuses for all sorts of bad coding practices, but is there anything that can possibly excuse this sort of $#|t? I guess there are two question here: one is a duplicate of What are developer's problems with helpful error messages?, and the other is "am I over-reacting, or is it valid to conclude that the author of the above code is a novice?"

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  • Building Enterprise Smartphone App &ndash; Part 4: Application Development Considerations

    - by Tim Murphy
    This is the final part in a series of posts based on a talk I gave recently at the Chicago Information Technology Architects Group.  Feel free to leave feedback. Application Development Considerations Now we get to the actual building of your solutions.  What are the skills and resources that will be needed in order to develop a smartphone application in the enterprise? Language Knowledge One of the first things you need to consider when you are deciding which platform language do you either have the most in house skill base or can you easily acquire.  If you already have developers who know Java or C# you may want to use either Android or Windows Phone.  You should also take into consideration the market availability of developers.  If your key developer leaves how easy is it to find a knowledgeable replacement? A second consideration when it comes to programming languages is the qualities exposed by the languages of a particular platform.  How well does that development language and its associated frameworks support things like security and access to the features of the smartphone hardware?  This will play into your overall cost of ownership if you have to create this infrastructure on your own. Manage Limited Resources Everything is limited on a smartphone: battery, memory, processing power, network bandwidth.  When developing your applications you will have to keep your footprint as small as possible in every way.  This means not running unnecessary processes in the background that will drain the battery or pulling more data over the airwaves than you have to.  You also want to keep your on device in as compact a format as possible. Mobile Design Patterns There are a number of design patterns that have either come to life because of smartphone development or have been adapted for this use.  The main pattern in the Windows Phone environment is the MVVM (Model-View-View-Model).  This is great for overall application structure and separation of concerns.  The fun part is trying to keep that separation as pure as possible.  Many of the other patterns may or may not have strict definitions, but some that you need to be concerned with are push notification, asynchronous communication and offline data storage. Real estate is limited on smartphones and even tablets. You are also limited in the type of controls that can be represented in the UI. This means rethinking how you modularize your application. Typing is also much harder to do so you want to reduce this as much as possible.  This leads to UI patterns.  While not what we would traditionally think of as design patterns the guidance each platform has for UI design is critical to the success of your application.  If user find the application difficult navigate they will not use it. Development Process Because of the differences in development tools required, test devices and certification and deployment processes your teams will need to learn new way of working together.  This will include the need to integrate service contracts of back-end systems with mobile applications.  You will also want to make sure that you present consistency across different access points to corporate data.  Your web site may have more functionality than your smartphone application, but it should have a consistent core set of functionality.  This all requires greater communication between sub-teams of your developers. Testing Process Testing of smartphone apps has a lot more to do with what happens when you lose connectivity or if the user navigates away from your application. There are a lot more opportunities for the user or the device to perform disruptive acts.  This should be your main testing concentration aside from the main business requirements.  You will need to do things like setting the phone to airplane mode and seeing what the application does in order to weed out any gaps in your handling communication interruptions. Need For Outside Experts Since this is a development area that is new to most companies the need for experts is a lot greater. Whether these are consultants, vendor representatives or just development community forums you will need to establish expert contacts. Nothing is more dangerous for your project timelines than a lack of knowledge.  Make sure you know who to call to avoid lengthy delays in your project because of knowledge gaps. Security Security has to be a major concern for enterprise applications. You aren't dealing with just someone's game standings. You are dealing with a companies intellectual property and competitive advantage. As such you need to start by limiting access to the application itself.  Once the user is in the app you need to ensure that the data is secure at all times.  This includes both local storage and across the wire.  This means if a platform doesn’t natively support encryption for these functions you will need to find alternatives to secure your data.  You also need to keep secret (encryption) keys obfuscated or locked away outside of the application. People can disassemble the code otherwise and break your encryption. Offline Capabilities As we discussed earlier one your biggest concerns is not having connectivity.  Because of this a good portion of your code may be dedicated to handling loss of connection and reconnection situations.  What do you do if you lose the network?  Back up all your transactions and store of any supporting data so that operations can continue off line. In order to support this you will need to determine the available flat file or local data base capabilities of the platform.  Any failed transactions will need to support a retry mechanism whether it is automatic or user initiated.  This also includes your services since they will need to be able to roll back partially completed transactions.  What ever you do, don’t ignore this area when you are designing your system. Deployment Each platform has different deployment capabilities. Some are more suited to enterprise situations than others. Apple's approach is probably the most mature at the moment. Prior to the current generation of smartphone platforms it would have been Windows CE. Windows Phone 7 has the limitation that the app has to be distributed through the same network as public facing applications. You mark them as private which means that they are only accessible by a direct URL. Unfortunately this does not make them undiscoverable (although it is very difficult). This will change with Windows Phone 8 where companies will be able to certify their own applications and distribute them.  Given this Windows Phone applications need to be more diligent with application access in order to keep them restricted to the company's employees. My understanding of the Android deployment schemes is that it is much less standardized then either iOS or Windows Phone. Someone would have to confirm or deny that for me though since I have not yet put the time into researching this platform further. Given my limited exposure to the iOS and Android platforms I have not been able to confirm this, but there are varying degrees of user involvement to install and keep applications updated. At one extreme the user just goes to a website to do the install and in other case they may need to download files and perform steps to install them. Future Bluetooth Today we use Bluetooth for keyboards, mice and headsets.  In the future it could be used to interrogate car computers or manufacturing systems or possibly retail machines by service techs.  This would open smartphones to greater use as a almost a Star Trek Tricorder.  You would get you all your data as well as being able to use it as a universal remote for just about any device or machine. Better corporation controlled deployment At least in the Windows Phone world the upcoming release of Windows Phone 8 will include a private certification and deployment option that is currently not available with Windows Phone 7 (Mango). We currently have to run the apps through the Marketplace certification process and use a targeted distribution method. Platform independent approaches HTML5 and JavaScript with Web Service has become a popular topic lately for not only creating flexible web site, but also creating cross platform mobile applications.  I’m not yet convinced that this lowest common denominator approach is viable in most cases, but it does have it’s place and seems to be growing.  Be sure to keep an eye on it. Summary From my perspective enterprise smartphone applications can offer a great competitive advantage to many companies.  They are not cheap to build and should be approached cautiously.  Understand the factors I have outlined in this series, do you due diligence and see if there is a portion of your business that can benefit from the mobile experience. del.icio.us Tags: Architecture,Smartphones,Windows Phone,iOS,Android

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  • How-To Geek is Hiring a Geeky Writer – Here Are the Details

    - by The Geek
    Think you have the perfect combination of geek knowledge and writing skills? We’re looking for an experienced writer to join our team, and here are all the details. We need a new writer to cover topics surrounding Windows 7 or 8, home networking, home routers, security, media, troubleshooting, mobile devices, and many similar topics. We are not looking for writers that focus solely on Linux or tech news writers. Please apply if you have the following qualities: You must be a geek at heart. You must be able to put in plenty of time, work, and dedication. If you’re too busy already, don’t apply. You must be able to write articles that are easy to understand. You must be creative. You must generate ideas for articles on your own, and take suggestions like a pro. You must be at least 18 years old. You must have solid English writing skills. You must be able to write tips, how-to articles, explainers, guides, instructional articles, etc. Again, we are not looking for tech news writers. Here’s a couple of our previous articles so you can get an idea of what we’re looking for in terms of quality and content. Please make sure to look through these before you decide to apply. How-to Article: Make Your Own Windows 8 Start Button with Zero Memory Usage Explainer: HTG Explains: When Do You Need to Update Your Drivers? Explainer: HTG Explains: Why Do Hard Drives Show the Wrong Capacity in Windows? How-To Article: How to Factory Reset Your Android Phone or Tablet When It Won’t Boot How to Fix a Stuck Pixel on an LCD Monitor How to Factory Reset Your Android Phone or Tablet When It Won’t Boot Our Geek Trivia App for Windows 8 is Now Available Everywhere

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  • Is it wise for a programmer to move into management?

    - by Desolate Planet
    Many times, a developer has suggested that I become a team leader because I'm motivated, but during my career in the IT industry, I've seen so many people who are great at programming, move into management and they are miserable. I've also seen many managers return to programming stating "I'm a technical person, I like technical problems". If this is such a common thing, why do developers feel compelled to leave the technical domain and move into management? Sure you'll have more money and more control, but if you don't enjoy your work and take your problems out on your tream. Secondly, I've been asked in developer interviews, "Would you consider leading a team?" and I'm always tempted to cite the Peter Principle based on what I've seen. I am interested in furthering myself, but not in the way the company may want i.e "Vice President of department blah". To be honest, I've seen this more often in the corporate world than in small development houses and it's always put me off ever going back to a corporate environment. I just feel that this is becoming more and more the norm and it's impacting team morale and degrading the quality of the work. Question: Based on what I've said, Is it a smart move for a technical person to move into management?

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  • Trying to compile from source newest apache with newest openssl

    - by AlexMA
    I need to install apache 2.4.10 using openssl 1.0.1i. I compiled openssl from source with: $ ./config \ --prefix=/opt/openssl-1.0.1i \ --openssldir=/opt/openssl-1.0.1i $ make $ sudo make install and Apache with: ./configure --prefix=/etc/apache2 \ --enable-access_compat=shared \ --enable-actions=shared \ --enable-alias=shared \ --enable-allowmethods=shared \ --enable-auth_basic=shared \ --enable-authn_core=shared \ --enable-authn_file=shared \ --enable-authz_core=shared \ --enable-authz_groupfile=shared \ --enable-authz_host=shared \ --enable-authz_user=shared \ --enable-autoindex=shared \ --enable-dir=shared \ --enable-env=shared \ --enable-headers=shared \ --enable-include=shared \ --enable-log_config=shared \ --enable-mime=shared \ --enable-negotiation=shared \ --enable-proxy=shared \ --enable-proxy_http=shared \ --enable-rewrite=shared \ --enable-setenvif=shared \ --enable-ssl=shared \ --enable-unixd=shared \ --enable-ssl \ --with-ssl=/opt/openssl-1.0.1i \ --enable-ssl-staticlib-deps \ --enable-mods-static=ssl make (would run sudo make install next but I get an error) I'm essentially following the guide here except with newer slightly newer versions. My problem is I get a linker error when I run make for apache: Making all in support make[1]: Entering directory `/home/developer/downloads/httpd-2.4.10/support' make[2]: Entering directory `/home/developer/downloads/httpd-2.4.10/support' /usr/share/apr-1.0/build/libtool --silent --mode=link x86_64-linux-gnu-gcc -std=gnu99 -pthread -L/opt/openssl-1.0.1i/lib -lssl -lcrypto \ -o ab ab.lo /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libaprutil-1.la /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libapr-1.la -lm /usr/bin/ld: /opt/openssl-1.0.1i/lib/libcrypto.a(dso_dlfcn.o): undefined reference to symbol 'dlclose@@GLIBC_2.2.5' I tried the answer here, but no luck. I would prefer to just use aptitude, but unfortunately the versions I need aren't available yet. If anyone knows how to fix the linker problem (or what I think is a linker problem), or knows of a better way to tell apache to use a newer openssl, it would be greatly appreciated; I've got apache 1.0.1i working otherwise.

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  • The MsC gray zone: How to deal with the "too unexperienced on engineering/too under-qualified for research" situation?

    - by Hunter2
    Last year I've got a MsC degree on CS. On the beginning of the MsC course, I was keen on moving on with research and go for a PhD. However, as the months passed, I started to feel the urge to write software that people would, well, actually use. The programming bug had bitten me, again. So, I decided that before deciding on getting a PhD degree, I would spend some time on the "real world", working as a software developer. Sadly, most companies here in Brazil are "services" companies that seem to be stuck on the 80s when it comes to software development. I have to fend off pushy managers, less-than-competent coworkers and outrageous software requirements (why does everyone seem to need a 50k Oracle license and a behemoth Websphere AS for their CRUD applications?) on a daily basis, and even though I still love software development, the situation is starting to touch a nerve. And, mind you, I'm already lucky for getting a job at a place that isn't a plain software sweatshop. Sure, there are better places around here or I could always try my luck abroad, but then I hit the proverbial brick wall: Sorry, you're too unexperienced as a developer and too under-qualified as a researcher I've already heard this, and variations of that, multiple times. Research position recruiters look for die-hard, publication-ridden, rockstar PhDs, while development position recruiters look for die-hard, experience-ridden, rockstar programmers. To most, my MsC degree seems like a minor bump on my CV (and an outright waste of time for some). Applying for abroad positions is even harder, since the employer would have to deal of the hassle of a VISA process, which I understand that, sometimes, is too much. Now I'm feeling I've reached a dead-end. I'm certain that development (and not research) is my thing, so should I just dismiss my MsC (or play it as a "trump card") and play the "big fish on a small pond" role while I gather some experience and contribute on some open-source projects as a plus? Is there a better way to handle this?

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  • JavaOne + Develop Registration is Open!

    - by justin.kestelyn
    Welcome to "The Zone". Here's what the new JavaOne + Develop registration Website says: The world's most important developer conferences are creating the world's coolest neighborhood for the developer community. Having been intimately involved in the planning process, I can vouch for that statement. Remember, if either co-located conference - JavaOne or Oracle Develop - are the confines of your interest, you can experience either one in standalone mode, if you like (although there are some areas of common interest, of course). Or, considering that a single Full Conference Pass gives you access to both of them, you can partake in any measure that you like. It's up to you. Either way, you will get access not only to session content and keynotes, but also to the massive OTN Night party on Monday night, to open unconference sessions, and to the legendary Appreciate Night concert (acts TBD) on Wednesday. Furthermore, as is customary, the Oracle Technology Network team will offer a full slate of community-focused activities and goodies while the conferences are running - more details on those as we have them. A GOOD time is ensured for all; I look forward to seeing you there!

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