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• Connect Team Foundation Service/TFS 2012 with Visual Studio 2010 &amp; Visual Studio 2008

  - by Vishal

  Hello, Microsoft finally released the Team Foundation Service in late October 2012 after its long time in the preview phase. I was already using the TFS Preview which was free but I was happy to see Microsoft releasing the Team Foundation Service also FREE for upto 5 users. Isn't that great news? I know there are bunch of other free source control repositories (Github, Bitbucket, SVN etc.) out there but I somehow like TFS better. Also the other good thing about the final release was that I didn’t had to do any kind of migration of my code from preview to final release version. Just changed the TFS connection URL and it worked like a charm. Anyways, if you are a startup with small team and need some awesome Source Control along with all the good Project Management, Continuous Integration (Build, Test, Deploy), Team Collaboration, Agile/Scrum planning etc. features than Team Foundation Service is your answer. Microsoft has not yet released their pricing for more than 5 users and will be releasing it sometime in early 2013. What if as of now you have a team more than 5 users and you want to use Team Foundation Service, the good news is you can use it for FREE but when they release the final pricing, you will have to transition to the paid plan. Lot of story, getting to the point, connecting to Team Foundation Service with Visual Studio 2012 is straight forward and would work out of the box but it wont for previous versions of Visual Studio. You will have to upgrade to the latest service pack first and than install the forward compatibility pack. (1st : Service Packs & 2nd: Forward Compatibility packs) For Visual Studio 2010: Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1. Visual Studio 2010 forward compatibility for TFS 2012 and Team Foundation Service.         For Visual Studio 2008: Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1. Visual Studio 2008 forward compatibility for TFS 2012 & Team Foundation Service. Restart your system. Visual Studio 2008 will not work if you only put https://xxx.visualstudio.com. You will have to put your collection name too as shown below.       By the way, it doesn’t matter if you are an Apple Application Developer or Android App Developer, you can still use Team Foundation Service as your source control. Below are few links to connect to Team Foundation Service with other IDEs: Connect Eclipse to Team Foundation Service. Connect XCode to Team Foundation Service. Happy coding. Vishal Mody

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• Archbeat Link-O-Rama Top 10 Facebook Faves - June 16-22, 2013

  - by Bob Rhubart

  2,819 people now follow OTN ArchBeat on Facebook. These are the Top 10 most popular items shared there for the week of June 16-22, 2013. Getting started with Java EE 7: Hands-on in 10 minutes | Lucas Jellema Oracle ACE Director and prolific blogger Lucas Jellema offers his take on the Java EE7 release and shares tips and resources to help you on your way. Not ‘how’ but ‘why’ should you upgrade to JDeveloper & ADF 11.1.1.7.0 | Chris Muir Oracle ACE Director Tim Hall and Oracle ADF Product Manager Chris Muir collaborated on this dialog that just might help you in your decision. OTN Architect Day: Cloud Computing - July 9, Redwood Shores, CA You won't need 3D glasses to see the technical sessions at OTN Architect Day: Cloud Computing, July 9, 2013. Redwood Shores, CA. It's free! It's live! Register now! Video: Frédéric Desbiens: Bringing Java to On-Device iOS and Android Apps (QCon NYC 2013) Oracle Application Development Tools product manager Frédéric Desbiens recaps his QCon New York presentation about how Java developers can leverage existing skills to develop enterprise mobile applications. OEPE 12.1.1.2.2 with GlassFish Tools released | Peter Benedikovic Peter Benedikovic's brief post offers an overview of some of the features in the new version of Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse, released in conjunction with the release of Java EE 7. Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Configuration Best Practices (Part 2 of 3) | Bethany Lapaglia Part 2 of Beth Lapaglia's 3-part series on the most commonly implemented configuration changes to improve performance and operation of a large Enterprise Manager 12c environment focuses on recommended WebLogic Server changes. Video: Doug Clarke: Polyglot Persistence: From NoSQL to HTML5 (QCon NYC 2013) Doug Clarke, EclipseLink Project Lead and Oracle Director of Product Management gives a very condensed version of his QCon New York presentation on "Polyglot Persistence: From NoSQL to HTML5." Podcast Show Notes: DevOps, Cloud, and Role Creep - Part 2 Automation and innovation had a huge impact on the manufacturing jobs of years gone by. Is something similar happening to some IT jobs? Oracle ACE Directors Ron Batra, Basheer Khan, and Cary Millsap discuss what's happening in part 2 of this 3-part podcast. Video: Reza Rahman: Building Java HTML5/WebSocket Applications with JSR 356 (QCon NYC 2013) Java EE/GlassFish evangelist Reza Rahman talks about how WebSocket provides "the basis for a new generation of interactive and live Web applications" for mobile developers. Lessons from Fusion HCM Implementations | Tim Warner Oracle ACE Tim Warner shares summaries of the Fusion HCM implementation experiences of several companies, as detailed in presentations at the 2013 Oracle HCM Users Group Conference. Thought for the Day "If the mind really is the finest computer, then there are a lot of people out there who need to be rebooted." — Tim Bryce Source: softwarequotes.com

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• Mouse takes a while to start working after boot

  - by warkior

  I just recently installed Ubuntu 12.04 (64 bit) and a number of my USB devices have stopped working. At least, they don't work for the first 3-5 minutes. I have two mice (one wireless, one wired) and a camera, which seem to take Ubuntu 3-5 minutes to recognize after booting up. Eventually, they do start to work, but it takes ages! lsusb results: (when the mice are working...) $ 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 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 003 Device 002: ID 046d:c512 Logitech, Inc. LX-700 Cordless Desktop Receiver Bus 003 Device 003: ID 03f0:3f11 Hewlett-Packard PSC-1315/PSC-1317 Bus 006 Device 002: ID 046d:c00c Logitech, Inc. Optical Wheel Mouse Bus 006 Device 003: ID 046d:c52b Logitech, Inc. Unifying Receiver syslog entries for what seems (to my very untrained eye) to be the problem: Oct 12 20:12:51 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H kernel: [ 17.420117] usb 2-3: device descriptor read/64, error -110 Oct 12 20:12:57 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H goa[1879]: goa-daemon version 3.4.0 starting [main.c:112, main()] Oct 12 20:13:06 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H kernel: [ 32.636107] usb 2-3: device descriptor read/64, error -110 Oct 12 20:13:06 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H kernel: [ 32.852122] usb 2-3: new high-speed USB device number 3 using ehci_hcd Oct 12 20:13:21 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H kernel: [ 47.964131] usb 2-3: device descriptor read/64, error -110 Oct 12 20:13:37 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H kernel: [ 63.180115] usb 2-3: device descriptor read/64, error -110 Oct 12 20:13:37 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H kernel: [ 63.396126] usb 2-3: new high-speed USB device number 4 using ehci_hcd Oct 12 20:13:47 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H kernel: [ 73.804158] usb 2-3: device not accepting address 4, error -110 Oct 12 20:13:47 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H kernel: [ 73.916190] usb 2-3: new high-speed USB device number 5 using ehci_hcd Oct 12 20:13:58 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H kernel: [ 84.324160] usb 2-3: device not accepting address 5, error -110 Oct 12 20:13:58 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H kernel: [ 84.324197] hub 2-0:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 3 Oct 12 20:13:58 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H udev-configure-printer: failed to claim interface Oct 12 20:13:58 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H udev-configure-printer: Failed to get parent Oct 12 20:13:58 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H udev-configure-printer: device devpath is /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:12.0/usb3/3-3 Oct 12 20:13:58 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H udev-configure-printer: MFG:hp MDL:psc 1310 series SERN:CN47CB60BJO2 serial:CN47CB60BJO2 Oct 12 20:13:58 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H kernel: [ 84.768132] usb 5-3: new full-speed USB device number 2 using ohci_hcd Oct 12 20:14:01 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H udev-configure-printer: no corresponding CUPS device found Oct 12 20:14:13 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H kernel: [ 99.904185] usb 5-3: device descriptor read/64, error -110 Oct 12 20:14:29 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H kernel: [ 115.144188] usb 5-3: device descriptor read/64, error -110 Oct 12 20:14:29 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H kernel: [ 115.384178] usb 5-3: new full-speed USB device number 3 using ohci_hcd Oct 12 20:14:44 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H kernel: [ 130.520196] usb 5-3: device descriptor read/64, error -110 Oct 12 20:14:59 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H kernel: [ 145.760179] usb 5-3: device descriptor read/64, error -110 Oct 12 20:14:59 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H kernel: [ 146.000173] usb 5-3: new full-speed USB device number 4 using ohci_hcd Oct 12 20:15:10 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H kernel: [ 156.408168] usb 5-3: device not accepting address 4, error -110 Oct 12 20:15:10 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H kernel: [ 156.544188] usb 5-3: new full-speed USB device number 5 using ohci_hcd Oct 12 20:15:20 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H kernel: [ 166.952181] usb 5-3: device not accepting address 5, error -110 Oct 12 20:15:20 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H kernel: [ 166.952215] hub 5-0:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 3 Oct 12 20:15:21 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H kernel: [ 167.216164] usb 6-2: new low-speed USB device number 2 using ohci_hcd Oct 12 20:15:21 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H mtp-probe: checking bus 6, device 2: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:13.1/usb6/6-2" Oct 12 20:15:21 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H mtp-probe: bus: 6, device: 2 was not an MTP device Oct 12 20:15:21 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H kernel: [ 167.396138] input: Logitech USB Mouse as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:13.1/usb6/6-2/6-2:1.0/input/input16 Oct 12 20:15:21 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H kernel: [ 167.396442] generic-usb 0003:046D:C00C.0003: input,hidraw2: USB HID v1.10 Mouse [Logitech USB Mouse] on usb-0000:00:13.1-2/input0 Oct 12 20:15:21 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H kernel: [ 167.660187] usb 6-3: new full-speed USB device number 3 using ohci_hcd Oct 12 20:15:21 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H mtp-probe: checking bus 6, device 3: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:13.1/usb6/6-3" Oct 12 20:15:21 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H mtp-probe: bus: 6, device: 3 was not an MTP device Oct 12 20:15:21 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H kernel: [ 167.859045] logitech-djreceiver 0003:046D:C52B.0006: hiddev0,hidraw3: USB HID v1.11 Device [Logitech USB Receiver] on usb-0000:00:13.1-3/input2 Oct 12 20:15:21 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H kernel: [ 167.865086] input: Logitech Unifying Device. Wireless PID:400a as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:13.1/usb6/6-3/6-3:1.2/0003:046D:C52B.0006/input/input17 Oct 12 20:15:21 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H kernel: [ 167.865291] logitech-djdevice 0003:046D:C52B.0007: input,hidraw4: USB HID v1.11 Mouse [Logitech Unifying Device. Wireless PID:400a] on usb-0000:00:13.1-3:1 Oct 12 20:15:24 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H colord: io/hpmud/musb.c 139: unable get_string_descriptor -1: Operation not permitted Oct 12 20:15:24 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H colord: io/hpmud/musb.c 2040: invalid product id string ret=-1 Oct 12 20:15:24 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H colord: io/hpmud/musb.c 139: unable get_string_descriptor -1: Operation not permitted Oct 12 20:15:24 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H colord: io/hpmud/musb.c 2045: invalid serial id string ret=-1 Oct 12 20:15:24 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H colord: io/hpmud/musb.c 139: unable get_string_descriptor -1: Operation not permitted Oct 12 20:15:24 REMOVED-GA-MA785GM-US2H colord: io/hpmud/musb.c 2050: invalid manufacturer string ret=-1

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• MSCC: Global Windows Azure Bootcamp - 29th March 2014

  The Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community proudly presents you the Global Windows Azure Bootcamp 2014 in Mauritius. Global Windows Azure Bootcamp 2014 in Mauritius - MSCC together with Microsoft, Ceridian and Emtel We are very happy and excited about our participation in this global event and would like to draw your attention to the official invitation letter below. Please sign up and RSVP on the official website of the MSCC. Participation is for free! Call for action Please create more awareness of this event in Mauritius and use the hash tag #gwabmru as well as the shortened link: http://aka.ms/gwabmru And remember: Sharing is Caring! Official invitation letter to the GWAB 2014 in Mauritius With over 130 confirmed locations around the globe, the Global Windows Azure Bootcamp is going to be a truly memorable event - and now here's your chance to take part! In April of 2013 we held the first Global Windows Azure Bootcamp at more than 90 locations around the globe! This year we want to again offer up a one day deep dive class to help thousands of people get up to speed on discovering Cloud Computing Applications for Windows Azure. In addition to this great learning opportunity the hands on labs will feature pooling a huge global compute farm to perform diabetes research! In Mauritius, the event will be organised by Microsoft Indian Ocean Islands & French Pacific in partnership with The Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community (MSCC) and sponsored by Microsoft, Ceridian and Emtel. What do I need to bring?  You will need to bring your own computer which can run Visual Studio 2012 or 2013 (i.e. Windows, OSX, Ubuntu with virtualization, etc.) and have it preloaded with the following: Visual Studio 2012 or 2013 The Windows Azure SDK - http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/net/ Optionally (or if you will not be doing just .NET labs), the following can also be installed: Node.js SDK - http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/nodejs/ JAVA SDK - http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/java/ Doing mobile? Android? iOS? Windows Phone or Windows 8? - http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/mobile/ PHP - http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/php/ More info here: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/documentation Important: Please do the installation upfront as there will be very little time to troubleshoot installations during the day.  

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• Win7 is not a tablet OS, no matter what the boys in Redmond think.

  - by John Conwell

  Despite what execs at Microsoft think, Windows 7 is NOT a tablet OS.  Just because you can install some software (or OS) on a device, doesn't mean that device is meant to run that software.  This seems to be the step that the non-engineer execs at Microsoft have seem to not understood.  In order to seamlessly work with a device, the software needs to be designed with that device in mind.  That has been the problem with the Windows PDA platform, the Windows Mobil platform, and now with trying to force fit Windows 7 on a tablet.  Its just not designed for that style of interaction.   Windows is designed to be interacted with via a mouse and keyboard.  In fact, it is brilliant at that.  But, It is NOT designed to be interacted with by your fingers.  And that is why the Windows tablet failed 10 years ago, and why it will fail today.  Its not the hardware's fault like Microsoft claimed 10 years ago.  Its the User Interaction design that failed. And this is why the iPhone and Android OS's work wonderfully on a tablet.  The user interaction was designed for small screens, navigated by big fat fingers.  I love these OS's and how I interact with them.  And when I play with a touch screen Windows 7 device, I am feel like I'm playing with a brittle wana-be.  And its not the hardware's fault.  The touchscreen is very responsive.  I actually like the hardware.  But the OS and the software are just not designed to be interacted with, with my big fat fingers.  In order to be successful, Microsoft needs to start from scratch, and build a platform AND SOFTWARE specifically for use by fingers.  Thats why everyone was so excited when they though Microsoft was going to release the Courier tablet.  Because it looked like a totally different platform.  Something that might actually work.  But Windows 7...I hate to burst your bubble, but you are not a touch platform.

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• Additional new material WebLogic Community

  - by JuergenKress

  Oracle Cloud Application Foundation 12c Helps Customers Deliver Next-Generation Applications on a Mission-Critical Cloud Platform In a recent online event, Oracle and industry speakers introduced Oracle Cloud Application Foundation 12c, including Oracle WebLogic 12.1.2 and Oracle Coherence 12.1.2.  Read More Team Spotlight: Mike Lehmann, Vice President of Product Management Meet the team behind Oracle Fusion Middleware. In this edition, we speak to Mike Lehmann, Oracle’s vice president of product management for Oracle Cloud Application Foundation, Oracle WebLogic Server, Oracle Coherence, Java Cloud Services, and Java Platform, Enterprise Edition. Read More New and Free: Learn Oracle Application Development Framework Mobile Online at Your Convenience Are you ready to go mobile? Check out this new tutorial from Oracle’s ADF Academy - Developing Applications with Oracle Application Development Framework Mobile. New: Oracle JDeveloper 12c and Oracle Application Development Framework 12c Announcing Oracle JDeveloper 12c and Oracle Application Development Framework 12c. New capabilities include HTML5, better Maven support, Git support, new Oracle ADF Faces components, improved REST support, Enterprise JavaBeans/Java Persistence API, and the latest support for Oracle WebLogic Server 12.1.2. Get more details and download. New: Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse 12c The best Eclipse-based tools for Oracle WebLogic and Oracle Coherence continue to get better. Check out the latest Oracle WebLogic and Oracle Coherence support, improved Oracle Application Development Framework support, Maven, and more. Register: Oracle WebLogic Devcast Series Join us for the upcoming Oracle WebLogic Devcast webcast. Oracle GlassFish Server 3.1.2 and 2.1.1 updates  & An Overview of JSON-P & Comprehensive Free Java EE 6 Video Tutorial! Java ME Embedded 3.3 and Java ME Software Development Kit (SDK) 3.3 Now Available - Optimized for microcontrollers and other resource-constrained devices, this release reduces "core plumbing" for an app, and includes more information about memory and network usage critical for low-power apps. JDK 8 Early Access Releases now available JDK 8 Early Access Developer Documentation - Get the latest documentation changes to the Java Developer Guides and the Java Tutorials - Blog NetBeans IDE 7.4 Beta - This release extends HTML5 features to Java EE and PHP application development, introduces new support for Hybrid HTML5 development on Android and iOS platforms, and preview support for JDK 8. WebLogic Partner Community For regular information become a member in the WebLogic Partner Community please visit: http://www.oracle.com/partners/goto/wls-emea ( OPN account required). If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Wiki Technorati Tags: WebLogic,WebLogic Community,Oracle,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• Most efficient way to implement delta time

  - by Starkers

  Here's one way to implement delta time: /// init /// var duration = 5000, currentTime = Date.now(); // and create cube, scene, camera ect ////// function animate() { /// determine delta /// var now = Date.now(), deltat = now - currentTime, currentTime = now, scalar = deltat / duration, angle = (Math.PI * 2) * scalar; ////// /// animate /// cube.rotation.y += angle; ////// /// update /// requestAnimationFrame(render); ////// } Could someone confirm I know how it works? Here what I think is going on: Firstly, we set duration at 5000, which how long the loop will take to complete in an ideal world. With a computer that is slow/busy, let's say the animation loop takes twice as long as it should, so 10000: When this happens, the scalar is set to 2.0: scalar = deltat / duration scalar = 10000 / 5000 scalar = 2.0 We now times all animation by twice as much: angle = (Math.PI * 2) * scalar; angle = (Math.PI * 2) * 2.0; angle = (Math.PI * 4) // which is 2 rotations When we do this, the cube rotation will appear to 'jump', but this is good because the animation remains real-time. With a computer that is going too quickly, let's say the animation loop takes half as long as it should, so 2500: When this happens, the scalar is set to 0.5: scalar = deltat / duration scalar = 2500 / 5000 scalar = 0.5 We now times all animation by a half: angle = (Math.PI * 2) * scalar; angle = (Math.PI * 2) * 0.5; angle = (Math.PI * 1) // which is half a rotation When we do this, the cube won't jump at all, and the animation remains real time, and doesn't speed up. However, would I be right in thinking this doesn't alter how hard the computer is working? I mean it still goes through the loop as fast as it can, and it still has render the whole scene, just with different smaller angles! So this a bad way to implement delta time, right? Now let's pretend the computer is taking exactly as long as it should, so 5000: When this happens, the scalar is set to 1.0: angle = (Math.PI * 2) * scalar; angle = (Math.PI * 2) * 1; angle = (Math.PI * 2) // which is 1 rotation When we do this, everything is timsed by 1, so nothing is changed. We'd get the same result if we weren't using delta time at all! My questions are as follows Mostly importantly, have I got the right end of the stick here? How do we know to set the duration to 5000 ? Or can it be any number? I'm a bit vague about the "computer going too quickly". Is there a way loop less often rather than reduce the animation steps? Seems like a better idea. Using this method, do all of our animations need to be timesed by the scalar? Do we have to hunt down every last one and times it? Is this the best way to implement delta time? I think not, due to the fact the computer can go nuts and all we do is divide each animation step and because we need to hunt down every step and times it by the scalar. Not a very nice DSL, as it were. So what is the best way to implement delta time? Below is one way that I do not really get but may be a better way to implement delta time. Could someone explain please? // Globals INV_MAX_FPS = 1 / 60; frameDelta = 0; clock = new THREE.Clock(); // In the animation loop (the requestAnimationFrame callback)… frameDelta += clock.getDelta(); // API: "Get the seconds passed since the last call to this method." while (frameDelta >= INV_MAX_FPS) { update(INV_MAX_FPS); // calculate physics frameDelta -= INV_MAX_FPS; } How I think this works: Firstly we set INV_MAX_FPS to 0.01666666666 How we will use this number number does not jump out at me. We then intialize a frameDelta which stores how long the last loop took to run. Come the first loop frameDelta is not greater than INV_MAX_FPS so the loop is not run (0 = 0.01666666666). So nothing happens. Now I really don't know what would cause this to happen, but let's pretend that the loop we just went through took 2 seconds to complete: We set frameDelta to 2: frameDelta += clock.getDelta(); frameDelta += 2.00 Now we run an animation thanks to update(0.01666666666). Again what is relevance of 0.01666666666?? And then we take away 0.01666666666 from the frameDelta: frameDelta -= INV_MAX_FPS; frameDelta = frameDelta - INV_MAX_FPS; frameDelta = 2 - 0.01666666666 frameDelta = 1.98333333334 So let's go into the second loop. Let's say it took 2(? Why not 2? Or 12? I am a bit confused): frameDelta += clock.getDelta(); frameDelta = frameDelta + clock.getDelta(); frameDelta = 1.98333333334 + 2 frameDelta = 3.98333333334 This time we enter the while loop because 3.98333333334 = 0.01666666666 We run update We take away 0.01666666666 from frameDelta again: frameDelta -= INV_MAX_FPS; frameDelta = frameDelta - INV_MAX_FPS; frameDelta = 3.98333333334 - 0.01666666666 frameDelta = 3.96666666668 Now let's pretend the loop is super quick and runs in just 0.1 seconds and continues to do this. (Because the computer isn't busy any more). Basically, the update function will be run, and every loop we take away 0.01666666666 from the frameDelta untill the frameDelta is less than 0.01666666666. And then nothing happens until the computer runs slowly again? Could someone shed some light please? Does the update() update the scalar or something like that and we still have to times everything by the scalar like in the first example?

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• A Facelift for Fusion

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  It's simple. It's modern. It was the buzz at OpenWorld in San Francisco. See what the UX team has been up to and what customers are going to love. At OpenWorld 2012, the Oracle Applications User Experience (UX) team unveiled the new face of Fusion Applications. You might have seen it in sessions presented by Chris Leone, Anthony Lye, Jeremy Ashley and others or you may have gotten a look on the demogrounds. Why are we delivering a new face for Fusion Applications? "Because," says Ashley, vice president of the Oracle Applications User Experience team, "we want to provide a simple, modern, productive way for users to complete their top quick-entry tasks. The idea is to provide a clear, productive user experience that is backed by the full functionality of Fusion Applications." The first release of the new face of Fusion focuses on three types of users. It provides a fully functional gateway to Fusion Applications for: ·         New and casual users who need quick access to self-service tasks ·         Professional users who need fast access to quick-entry, high-volume tasks ·         Users who are looking for a way to quickly brand their portal for employees The new face of Fusion allows users to move easily from navigation to action, Ashley said, and it has been designed for any device -- Mac, PC, iPad, Android, SmartBoard -- in the browser. How Did We Build It? The new face of Fusion essentially is a custom shell, developed by the Apps UX team, and a set of page templates that embodies a simple design aesthetic. It's repeatable, providing consistency across its pages, and the need for training is little to zero. More specifically, the new face of Fusion has been built on ADF. The Applications UX team created pages in JDeveloper using local tasks flows bound to existing view objects. Three new components were commissioned from ADF and existing Fusion components were re-skinned to deliver a simple, modern user experience. It really is that simple - and to prove that point, we've been sharing our new face of Fusion story on several Oracle channels such as this one. If you want to learn more, check OpenWorld presentation on the Fusion Learning Center.

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• How To Completely Disable Subtitles in VLC

  - by The Geek

  If you watch a lot of videos using VLC, you might have noticed that it enables subtitles by default if they are there, which can be pretty annoying at times. Here’s the quick tip to disable them entirely. Of course, you can always turn them back on if you want on an individual video basis. Disable Subtitles Head into the VLC preferences, and then click the All button at the bottom of the screen. On the left-hand side, choose Video –> Subtitles/OSD, and then uncheck the boxes for “Autodetect subtitle files”, Enable sub-pictures, and On Screen Display. That should do it, unless the subtitles are forced in the video for some reason. Note: Certain video formats like MKV can sometimes have subtitles enabled even though there isn’t a separate subtitles file. This is why you need to remove “Enable sub-pictures” as well, which totally disables the on-screen text. You can choose to only uncheck the autodetecting of subtitles instead if you’d prefer. And of course, you can simply right-click on the video, head to Video –> Subtitles Track and then choose the subtitles if you still wanted them. Note: this only works if the “enable sub-pictures” option is still enabled. And thus ends the tale of disabling those fracking subtitles. Starbuck approves. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips You Really Want to Completely Disable Tabs in Firefox?Disable ProFTP on CentOSDisable Notification Balloons in XPHow To (Really) Completely Disable UAC on Windows 7Disable User Account Control (UAC) the Easy Way on Win 7 or Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Quickly Schedule Meetings With NeedtoMeet Share Flickr Photos On Facebook Automatically Are You Blocked On Gtalk? Find out Discover Latest Android Apps On AppBrain The Ultimate Guide For YouTube Lovers Will it Blend? iPad Edition

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• Introducing Windows Azure Mobile Services

  - by Clint Edmonson

  Today I’m excited to share that the Windows Azure Mobile Services public preview is now available. This preview provides a turnkey backend cloud solution designed to accelerate connected client app development. These services streamline the development process by enabling you to leverage the cloud for common mobile application scenarios such as structured storage, user authentication and push notifications. If you’re building a Windows 8 app and want a fast and easy path to creating backend cloud services, this preview provides the capabilities you need. You to take advantage of the cloud to build and deploy modern apps for Windows 8 devices in anticipation of general availability on October 26th. Subsequent preview releases will extend support to iOS, Android, and Windows Phone. Features The preview makes it fast and easy to create cloud services for Windows 8 applications within minutes. Here are the key benefits:  Rapid development: configure a straightforward and secure backend in less than five minutes. Create modern mobile apps: common Windows Azure plus Windows 8 scenarios that Windows Azure Mobile Services preview will support include:  Automated Service API generation providing CRUD functionality and dynamic schematization on top of Structured Storage Structured Storage with powerful query support so a Windows 8 app can seamlessly connect to a Windows Azure SQL database Integrated Authentication so developers can configure user authentication via Windows Live Push Notifications to bring your Windows 8 apps to life with up to date and relevant information Access structured data: connect to a Windows Azure SQL database for simple data management and dynamically created tables. Easy to set and manage permissions. Pricing One of the key things that we’ve consistently heard from developers about using Windows Azure with mobile applications is the need for a low cost and simple offer. The simplest way to describe the pricing for Windows Azure Mobile Services at preview is that it is the same as Windows Azure Websites during preview. What’s FREE? Run up to 10 Mobile Services for free in a multitenant environment Free with valid Windows Azure Free Trial 1GB SQL Database Unlimited ingress 165MB/day egress  What do I pay for? Scaling up to dedicated VMs Once Windows Azure Free Trial expires - SQL Database and egress     Getting Started To start using Mobile Services, you will need to sign up for a Windows Azure free trial, if you have not done so already.  If you already have a Windows Azure account, you will need to request to enroll in this preview feature. Once you’ve enrolled, this getting started tutorial will walk you through building your first Windows 8 application using the preview’s services. The developer center contains more resources to teach you how to: Validate and authorize access to data using easy scripts that execute securely, on the server Easily authenticate your users via Windows Live Send toast notifications and update live tiles in just a few lines of code Our pricing calculator has also been updated for calculate costs for these new mobile services. Questions? Ask in the Windows Azure Forums. Feedback? Send it to [email protected].

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• Test your internet connection - Emtel Mobile Internet

  After yesterday's report on Emtel Fixed Broadband (I'm still wondering where the 'fixed' part is), I did the same tests on Emtel Mobile Internet. For this I'm using the Huawei E169G HSDPA USB stick, connected to the same machine. Actually, this is my fail-safe internet connection and the system automatically switches between them if a problem, let's say timeout, etc. has been detected on the main line. For better comparison I used exactly the same servers on Speedtest.net. The results Following are the results of Rose Hill (hosted by Emtel) and respectively Frankfurt, Germany (hosted by Vodafone DE): Speedtest.net result of 31.05.2013 between Flic en Flac and Rose Hill, Mauritius (Emtel - Mobile Internet) Speedtest.net result of 31.05.2013 between Flic en Flac and Frankfurt, Germany (Emtel - Mobile Internet) As you might easily see, there is a big difference in speed between national and international connections. More interestingly are the results related to the download and upload ratio. I'm not sure whether connections over Emtel Mobile Internet are asymmetric or symmetric like the Fixed Broadband. Might be interesting to find out. The first test result actually might give us a clue that the connection could be asymmetric with a ratio of 3:1 but again I'm not sure. I'll find out and post an update on this. It depends on network coverage Later today I was on tour with my tablet, a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (model GT-P7500) running on Android 4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich), and did some more tests using the Speedtest.net app. The results are actually as expected and in areas with better network coverage you will get better results after all. At least, as long as you stay inside the national networks. For anything abroad, it doesn't really matter. But see for yourselves: Speedtest.net result of 31.05.2013 between Cascavelle and servers in Rose Hill, Mauritius (Emtel - Mobile Internet), Port Louis, Mauritius and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia It's rather shocking and frustrating to see how the speed on international destinations goes down. And the full capability of the tablet's integrated modem (HSDPA: 21 Mbps; HSUPA: 5.76 Mbps) isn't used, too. I guess, this demands more tests in other areas of the island, like Ebene, Pailles or Port Louis. I'll keep you updated... The question remains: Alternatives? After the publication of the test results on Fixed Broadband I had some exchange with others on Facebook. Sadly, it seems that there are really no alternatives to what Emtel is offering at the moment. There are the various internet packages by Mauritius Telecom feat. Orange, like ADSL, MyT and Mobile Internet, and there is Bharat Telecom with their Bees offer which is currently limited to Ebene and parts of Quatre Bornes.

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• Why do we (really) program to interfaces?

  - by Kyle Burns

  One of the earliest lessons I was taught in Enterprise development was "always program against an interface".  This was back in the VB6 days and I quickly learned that no code would be allowed to move to the QA server unless my business objects and data access objects each are defined as an interface and have a matching implementation class.  Why?  "It's more reusable" was one answer.  "It doesn't tie you to a specific implementation" a slightly more knowing answer.  And let's not forget the discussion ending "it's a standard".  The problem with these responses was that senior people didn't really understand the reason we were doing the things we were doing and because of that, we were entirely unable to realize the intent behind the practice - we simply used interfaces and had a bunch of extra code to maintain to show for it. It wasn't until a few years later that I finally heard the term "Inversion of Control".  Simply put, "Inversion of Control" takes the creation of objects that used to be within the control (and therefore a responsibility of) of your component and moves it to some outside force.  For example, consider the following code which follows the old "always program against an interface" rule in the manner of many corporate development shops: 1: ICatalog catalog = new Catalog(); 2: Category[] categories = catalog.GetCategories(); In this example, I met the requirement of the rule by declaring the variable as ICatalog, but I didn't hit "it doesn't tie you to a specific implementation" because I explicitly created an instance of the concrete Catalog object.  If I want to test the functionality of the code I just wrote I have to have an environment in which Catalog can be created along with any of the resources upon which it depends (e.g. configuration files, database connections, etc) in order to test my functionality.  That's a lot of setup work and one of the things that I think ultimately discourages real buy-in of unit testing in many development shops. So how do I test my code without needing Catalog to work?  A very primitive approach I've seen is to change the line the instantiates catalog to read: 1: ICatalog catalog = new FakeCatalog();   once the test is run and passes, the code is switched back to the real thing.  This obviously poses a huge risk for introducing test code into production and in my opinion is worse than just keeping the dependency and its associated setup work.  Another popular approach is to make use of Factory methods which use an object whose "job" is to know how to obtain a valid instance of the object.  Using this approach, the code may look something like this: 1: ICatalog catalog = CatalogFactory.GetCatalog();   The code inside the factory is responsible for deciding "what kind" of catalog is needed.  This is a far better approach than the previous one, but it does make projects grow considerably because now in addition to the interface, the real implementation, and the fake implementation(s) for testing you have added a minimum of one factory (or at least a factory method) for each of your interfaces.  Once again, developers say "that's too complicated and has me writing a bunch of useless code" and quietly slip back into just creating a new Catalog and chalking any test failures up to "it will probably work on the server". This is where software intended specifically to facilitate Inversion of Control comes into play.  There are many libraries that take on the Inversion of Control responsibilities in .Net and most of them have many pros and cons.  From this point forward I'll discuss concepts from the standpoint of the Unity framework produced by Microsoft's Patterns and Practices team.  I'm primarily focusing on this library because it questions about it inspired this posting. At Unity's core and that of most any IoC framework is a catalog or registry of components.  This registry can be configured either through code or using the application's configuration file and in the most simple terms says "interface X maps to concrete implementation Y".  It can get much more complicated, but I want to keep things at the "what does it do" level instead of "how does it do it".  The object that exposes most of the Unity functionality is the UnityContainer.  This object exposes methods to configure the catalog as well as the Resolve<T> method which is used to obtain an instance of the type represented by T.  When using the Resolve<T> method, Unity does not necessarily have to just "new up" the requested object, but also can track dependencies of that object and ensure that the entire dependency chain is satisfied. There are three basic ways that I have seen Unity used within projects.  Those are through classes directly using the Unity container, classes requiring injection of dependencies, and classes making use of the Service Locator pattern. The first usage of Unity is when classes are aware of the Unity container and directly call its Resolve method whenever they need the services advertised by an interface.  The up side of this approach is that IoC is utilized, but the down side is that every class has to be aware that Unity is being used and tied directly to that implementation. Many developers don't like the idea of as close a tie to specific IoC implementation as is represented by using Unity within all of your classes and for the most part I agree that this isn't a good idea.  As an alternative, classes can be designed for Dependency Injection.  Dependency Injection is where a force outside the class itself manipulates the object to provide implementations of the interfaces that the class needs to interact with the outside world.  This is typically done either through constructor injection where the object has a constructor that accepts an instance of each interface it requires or through property setters accepting the service providers.  When using dependency, I lean toward the use of constructor injection because I view the constructor as being a much better way to "discover" what is required for the instance to be ready for use.  During resolution, Unity looks for an injection constructor and will attempt to resolve instances of each interface required by the constructor, throwing an exception of unable to meet the advertised needs of the class.  The up side of this approach is that the needs of the class are very clearly advertised and the class is unaware of which IoC container (if any) is being used.  The down side of this approach is that you're required to maintain the objects passed to the constructor as instance variables throughout the life of your object and that objects which coordinate with many external services require a lot of additional constructor arguments (this gets ugly and may indicate a need for refactoring). The final way that I've seen and used Unity is to make use of the ServiceLocator pattern, of which the Patterns and Practices team has also provided a Unity-compatible implementation.  When using the ServiceLocator, your class calls ServiceLocator.Retrieve in places where it would have called Resolve on the Unity container.  Like using Unity directly, it does tie you directly to the ServiceLocator implementation and makes your code aware that dependency injection is taking place, but it does have the up side of giving you the freedom to swap out the underlying IoC container if necessary.  I'm not hugely concerned with hiding IoC entirely from the class (I view this as a "nice to have"), so the single biggest problem that I see with the ServiceLocator approach is that it provides no way to proactively advertise needs in the way that constructor injection does, allowing more opportunity for difficult to track runtime errors. This blog entry has not been intended in any way to be a definitive work on IoC, but rather as something to spur thought about why we program to interfaces and some ways to reach the intended value of the practice instead of having it just complicate your code.  I hope that it helps somebody begin or continue a journey away from being a "Cargo Cult Programmer".

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• ADF Mobile @ Oracle Open World 2012 - A Look Back...

  - by Joe Huang

  Hi, everyone: It's been a little over two weeks since the end of Oracle Open World 2012, and hope everyone has recovered sufficiently.  We have seen a tremendous amount of coverage on Oracle ADF Mobile during this Oracle Open World.  For starters, ADF Mobile demo booth was positioned in the Oracle Red Lounge in Moscone North, where all new and innovative technologies are being demonstrated.  The booth is liternally out front and the first booth in the area, and we had a lot of interested attendees talking to us.  It feels like ADF Mobile has finally arrived on the big stage. There are numerous sessions and hands on labs that covers ADF Mobile.  Details can be found in Oracle Open World page.   The Oracle Cloud: Oracle's Cloud Platofrm and Application Strategy by Thomas Kurian (Keynote) Near the beginning of the keynote, showing a great analytics application built using ADF Mobile  Oracle Fusion Middleware Strategies Driving Business Innovation by Hasan Rizvi (Keynote) The Future of Development for Oracle Fusion—From Desktop to Mobile to Cloud by Chris Tonas (General Session) Co-presented with Accenture, an ADF Mobile Beta Partner Extend Oracle Fusion Apps to Tablets/Smartphones with Oracle Mobile Technology (General Session) Extend Oracle Applications to Mobile Devices with Oracle’s Mobile Technologies (General Session) Building Mobile Applications with Oracle Cloud (General Session) Mobile-Enable Oracle Fusion Middleware and Enterprise Applications with Oracle ADF (Conference Session) Co-presented with Infosys, an ADF Mobile Beta Partner Develop On-Device iPhone and iPad Apps Without Writing Any Objective-C Code (Oracle Develop Session) Mobile Apps for Oracle E-Business Suite with Oracle ADF Mobile and Oracle SOA Suite (Conference Session) Developing Applications for Mobile iOS and Android Devices with Oracle ADF Mobile (Hands on Lab) This lab was repeated 8 (!) times Build Mobile Applications for Oracle E-business Suite (Hands on Lab) It was an extremely busy Open World for the team, and we were in the middle of trying to release ADF Mobile!   By far, the most memorable event during Open World was the ADF Meett Up at the OTN Lounge, where beers were flowing (for a little while) and familiar names are finally matched with faces.  We also appreciate the opportunity to interview the attendees from New Caledonia - sorry we probably surprised you with the video record, and many thanks for coming through for us. I also want to thank my fellow ADF Mobile and Fusion Middleware team members - from product managers, engineers, and product marketing, everyone worked extremely hard to make this Open World a great success for ADF Mobile. I really enjoyed meeting everyone at Oracle Open World, at the booth, sessions, etc.   Now it's on to release ADF Mobile - for real! Thanks, Joe Huang PS: If this thread shows up on your RSS feed, please keep watching...

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• How is the gimbal locked problem solved using accumulative matrix transformations

  - by Luke San Antonio

  I am reading the online "Learning Modern 3D Graphics Programming" book by Jason L. McKesson As of now, I am up to the gimbal lock problem and how to solve it using quaternions. However right here, at the Quaternions page. Part of the problem is that we are trying to store an orientation as a series of 3 accumulated axial rotations. Orientations are orientations, not rotations. And orientations are certainly not a series of rotations. So we need to treat the orientation of the ship as an orientation, as a specific quantity. I guess this is the first spot I start to get confused, the reason is because I don't see the dramatic difference between orientations and rotations. I also don't understand why an orientation cannot be represented by a series of rotations... Also: The first thought towards this end would be to keep the orientation as a matrix. When the time comes to modify the orientation, we simply apply a transformation to this matrix, storing the result as the new current orientation. This means that every yaw, pitch, and roll applied to the current orientation will be relative to that current orientation. Which is precisely what we need. If the user applies a positive yaw, you want that yaw to rotate them relative to where they are current pointing, not relative to some fixed coordinate system. The concept, I understand, however I don't understand how if accumulating matrix transformations is a solution to this problem, how the code given in the previous page isn't just that. Here's the code: void display() { glClearColor(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f); glClearDepth(1.0f); glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT); glutil::MatrixStack currMatrix; currMatrix.Translate(glm::vec3(0.0f, 0.0f, -200.0f)); currMatrix.RotateX(g_angles.fAngleX); DrawGimbal(currMatrix, GIMBAL_X_AXIS, glm::vec4(0.4f, 0.4f, 1.0f, 1.0f)); currMatrix.RotateY(g_angles.fAngleY); DrawGimbal(currMatrix, GIMBAL_Y_AXIS, glm::vec4(0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f)); currMatrix.RotateZ(g_angles.fAngleZ); DrawGimbal(currMatrix, GIMBAL_Z_AXIS, glm::vec4(1.0f, 0.3f, 0.3f, 1.0f)); glUseProgram(theProgram); currMatrix.Scale(3.0, 3.0, 3.0); currMatrix.RotateX(-90); //Set the base color for this object. glUniform4f(baseColorUnif, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0); glUniformMatrix4fv(modelToCameraMatrixUnif, 1, GL_FALSE, glm::value_ptr(currMatrix.Top())); g_pObject->Render("tint"); glUseProgram(0); glutSwapBuffers(); } To my understanding, isn't what he is doing (modifying a matrix on a stack) considered accumulating matrices, since the author combined all the individual rotation transformations into one matrix which is being stored on the top of the stack. My understanding of a matrix is that they are used to take a point which is relative to an origin (let's say... the model), and make it relative to another origin (the camera). I'm pretty sure this is a safe definition, however I feel like there is something missing which is blocking me from understanding this gimbal lock problem. One thing that doesn't make sense to me is: If a matrix determines the difference relative between two "spaces," how come a rotation around the Y axis for, let's say, roll, doesn't put the point in "roll space" which can then be transformed once again in relation to this roll... In other words shouldn't any further transformations to this point be in relation to this new "roll space" and therefore not have the rotation be relative to the previous "model space" which is causing the gimbal lock. That's why gimbal lock occurs right? It's because we are rotating the object around set X, Y, and Z axes rather than rotating the object around it's own, relative axes. Or am I wrong? Since apparently this code I linked in isn't an accumulation of matrix transformations can you please give an example of a solution using this method. So in summary: What is the difference between a rotation and an orientation? Why is the code linked in not an example of accumulation of matrix transformations? What is the real, specific purpose of a matrix, if I had it wrong? How could a solution to the gimbal lock problem be implemented using accumulation of matrix transformations? Also, as a bonus: Why are the transformations after the rotation still relative to "model space?" Another bonus: Am I wrong in the assumption that after a transformation, further transformations will occur relative to the current? Also, if it wasn't implied, I am using OpenGL, GLSL, C++, and GLM, so examples and explanations in terms of these are greatly appreciated, if not necessary. The more the detail the better! Thanks in advance...

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• Microsoft Forcing Dev/Partners Hands on Win 8 Through Certification

  - by D'Arcy Lussier

  I remember 2.5 years ago when Microsoft dropped a bomb on the Microsoft Partner community: all Gold competencies would require .NET 4 based premiere certifications (MCPD). Problem was, this gave a window of about 6 months for partners to update their employees’ certifications. At the place I was working, I put together an aggressive plan and we were able to attain the certs needed. Microsoft is always open that the certification requirements will change as the industry changes. .NET 1.0 certifications are useless here in 2012, and rightfully so they’ve been retired for a long time now. But now we’re seeing a new tactic by Microsoft – shifting gears away from certifications that speak to what industry needs and more to the Windows 8 agenda. Consider that currently the premiere development certification is the Microsoft Certified Professional Developer, which comes in three flavours – Web, Windows, and Azure. All require WCF and Data Access exams, as well as one that deals with the associated base technologies (ASP.NET, WinForms/WPF, Azure), and one that ties all three together in a solution-based exam. For Microsoft-based organizations, these skills aren’t just valid but necessary in building Microsoft applications. But the MCPD is being replaced with our old friend Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer (MCSD). So far, Microsoft has only released two types of MCSD – Web and Windows Store Apps. Windows Store Apps?! In a push to move developers to create WinRT-based applications, desktop development is now considered a second-class citizen in the eyes of Redmond. Also interesting are the language options for the exams: HTML5 and C#. Sorry VB folks, its time to embrace curly braces whether they be JavaScript or C#. Consider too the skills being assessed for the Windows Store Apps: Get your MCSD: Windows Store Apps Using HTML5 Get your MCSD: Windows Store Apps Using C# *Image Source: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/certification/mcsd-windows-store-apps.aspx Nov 21/2012 If you look at the skills being tested in each exam, you’ll find that skills like WCF and Data Access are downplayed compared to things like integrating Charms, facilitating Search, programming for the microphone and camera – all very Windows 8 focussed items. Where this becomes maddening is that Microsoft is still pushing Windows 7 with enterprise clients. According to a ZDNet article, Microsoft wants to see Windows 7 on 70% of enterprise desktops by mid 2013. Assuming they somehow meet that (its a pretty lofty goal), there’s years of traditional desktop-based development that will still be required at some level. For those thinking they’ll just write and stick with the MCPD certification, note that most exams that go towards that certification will be retired at the end of July 2013! (Read the small print). And while details haven’t been finalized, its a safe bet that MCPD certifications eventually won’t count towards Gold-level competencies in the Microsoft Partner program. What this means for Microsoft Partners and Developers is that certification for desktop development is going to be limited to Windows Store Apps unless Microsoft re-introduces a traditional desktop (WPF) based MCSD cert. Web Application Development – It’s Not All Bad There’s big changes on the web side of certification, but I actually see these changes as being for the good! Check out the new exam requirements for MCSD – Web Applications: Get your MCSD: Web Applications certification *Image Source: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/certification/cert-mcsd-web-applications.aspx Nov 21, 2012 We now *start* with HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS3! Now I’m sure that these will be slanted towards web development in IE, and I can hear designers everywhere bemoaning the CSS/IE combination. Still, I applaud Microsoft for adopting HTML5 as the go-to web technology and requiring certified developers to prove they have skills in the basics of web dev. The fact that the second exam clearly states “MVC Web Applications” shows that Web Forms is truly legacy and deprecated. That’s not to say there aren’t those out there that are still supporting or (for whatever reason) doing new dev with Web Forms, but this move by Microsoft is telling the community they better get on the MVC bandwagon if they want to stay current. Fantastic! And of course Azure needs to be here as well, and this is where the Microsoft agenda fits in. It’s no secret that there’s been a huge push in getting developers on to Azure. I don’t see this as being a bad thing either, as cloud computing (whether Azure, private, or 3rd party) is a necessary skill for developers to have here in 2012. The cynic in me realizes that the HTML5/JavaScript/CSS push wouldn’t be as prominent though if not for the Windows 8 Store App play, where HTML5 is a first class citizen (and an available language for the MCSD Windows Store App cert). In this case, the desktop developers loss is the web developers gain. Get Ready for Changes In addition to the changes in certifications, the Microsoft Partner competencies are going through changes as well. Web and Software Development are being merged into a single competency, meaning that licenses you would have received from having both as Gold are reduced. Other competencies are either being removed or changed, as are the exam requirements. In the same way that we’re seeing faster release cycles from Microsoft, so too will we see the Microsoft Partner Program and MS Certifications evolve faster than ever before. Many of us got caught in the last wave of changes, but this time we can see the wave coming – and it looks pretty big!

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• Will HTML5 make Silverlight redundant?

  - by Laila

  One of the great features of Adobe AIR v2 that was launched this month was its support for some of the 2008 draft of HTML5. The HTML5 specification was started in 2004, but the full spec will probably not be approved by W3C until around 2022. One might have thought that it would take years yet from now to reach the point where any browsers were remotely HTML5-compliant, but enough of HTML5 is published and agreed to make a lot of it possible, and Safari and Adobe have got there thanks to Apple's open-source WebKit. The race for HTML 5 has been fuelled by the demand by Apple and Google for advanced graphics, typography, animations and transitions without having to rely on third party browser plug-ins such as Adobe Flash or Silverlight. There is good reason for this haste: Flash doesn't support touch-devices and has been slow in supporting hardware video decoders such as H.264. There is a strong requirement to do all that Flash can do in an open-standards way. Those with proprietary solutions remain sniffy. In AIR 2, Adobe pointedly disables the HTML5 and tags that allow basic playing of media content, saying that the specification is not final and there is still no standard for the supported formats, and adding that Safari implements a 'disjoint set' of codecs. Microsoft also has little interest in HTML 5 as it has so much invested in Silverlight. Google stands to gain by the Adobe AIR for Android as it will allow a lot of applications to be migrated easily to the platform, so sees Apple's war on Flash as a way of gaining market share. Why do we care? It is because HTML5/CSS3 provides facilities much far beyond HTML4, bring the reality of browser-based applications a lot closer. Probably most generally useful is the advanced typography: Safari and AIR already both support a way of reflowing text in a container across an arbitrary number of columns; Page-specific fonts can also be specified. Then there is 2D drawing, video, transitions, local storage, AJAX navigation and mutable DOM prototypes. HTML5 is likely to provide base functionality that is required but it is too early to be certain that it will render Flash, Silverlight or JavaFX obsolete. In the meantime, Adobe Air provides the best vehicle for developing HTML5/CSS3 applications without a twinge of worry about browser incompatibilities. Cheers, Laila

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• Annoying flickering of vertices and edges (possible z-fighting)

  - by Belgin

  I'm trying to make a software z-buffer implementation, however, after I generate the z-buffer and proceed with the vertex culling, I get pretty severe discrepancies between the vertex depth and the depth of the buffer at their projected coordinates on the screen (i.e. zbuffer[v.xp][v.yp] != v.z, where xp and yp are the projected x and y coordinates of the vertex v), sometimes by a small fraction of a unit and sometimes by 2 or 3 units. Here's what I think is happening: Each triangle's data structure holds the plane's (that is defined by the triangle) coefficients (a, b, c, d) computed from its three vertices from their normal: void computeNormal(Vertex *v1, Vertex *v2, Vertex *v3, double *a, double *b, double *c) { double a1 = v1 -> x - v2 -> x; double a2 = v1 -> y - v2 -> y; double a3 = v1 -> z - v2 -> z; double b1 = v3 -> x - v2 -> x; double b2 = v3 -> y - v2 -> y; double b3 = v3 -> z - v2 -> z; *a = a2*b3 - a3*b2; *b = -(a1*b3 - a3*b1); *c = a1*b2 - a2*b1; } void computePlane(Poly *p) { double x = p -> verts[0] -> x; double y = p -> verts[0] -> y; double z = p -> verts[0] -> z; computeNormal(p -> verts[0], p -> verts[1], p -> verts[2], &p -> a, &p -> b, &p -> c); p -> d = p -> a * x + p -> b * y + p -> c * z; } The z-buffer just holds the smallest depth at the respective xy coordinate by somewhat casting rays to the polygon (I haven't quite got interpolation right yet so I'm using this slower method until I do) and determining the z coordinate from the reversed perspective projection formulas (which I got from here: double z = -(b*Ez*y + a*Ez*x - d*Ez)/(b*y + a*x + c*Ez - b*Ey - a*Ex); Where x and y are the pixel's coordinates on the screen; a, b, c, and d are the planes coefficients; Ex, Ey, and Ez are the eye's (camera's) coordinates. This last formula does not accurately give the exact vertices' z coordinate at their projected x and y coordinates on the screen, probably because of some floating point inaccuracy (i.e. I've seen it return something like 3.001 when the vertex's z-coordinate was actually 2.998). Here is the portion of code that hides the vertices that shouldn't be visible: for(i = 0; i < shape.nverts; ++i) { double dist = shape.verts[i].z; if(z_buffer[shape.verts[i].yp][shape.verts[i].xp].z < dist) shape.verts[i].visible = 0; else shape.verts[i].visible = 1; } How do I solve this issue? EDIT I've implemented the near and far planes of the frustum, with 24 bit accuracy, and now I have some questions: Is this what I have to do this in order to resolve the flickering? When I compare the z value of the vertex with the z value in the buffer, do I have to convert the z value of the vertex to z' using the formula, or do I convert the value in the buffer back to the original z, and how do I do that? What are some decent values for near and far? Thanks in advance.

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• 2D isometric picking

  - by Bikonja

  I'm trying to implement picking in my isometric 2D game, however, I am failing. First of all, I've searched for a solution and came to several, different equations and even a solution using matrices. I tried implementing every single one, but none of them seem to work for me. The idea is that I have an array of tiles, with each tile having it's x and y coordinates specified (in this simplified example it's by it's position in the array). I'm thinking that the tile (0, 0) should be on the left, (max, 0) on top, (0, max) on the bottom and (max, max) on the right. I came up with this loop for drawing, which googling seems to have verified as the correct solution, as has the rendered scene (ofcourse, it could still be wrong, also, forgive the messy names and stuff, it's just a WIP proof of concept code) // Draw code int col = 0; int row = 0; for (int i = 0; i < nrOfTiles; ++i) { // XOffset and YOffset are currently hardcoded values, but will represent camera offset combined with HUD offset Point tile = IsoToScreen(col, row, TileWidth / 2, TileHeight / 2, XOffset, YOffset); int x = tile.X; int y = tile.Y; spriteBatch.Draw(_tiles[i], new Rectangle(tile.X, tile.Y, TileWidth, TileHeight), Color.White); col++; if (col >= Columns) // Columns is the number of tiles in a single row { col = 0; row++; } } // Get selection overlay location (removed check if selection exists for simplicity sake) Point tile = IsoToScreen(_selectedTile.X, _selectedTile.Y, TileWidth / 2, TileHeight / 2, XOffset, YOffset); spriteBatch.Draw(_selectionTexture, new Rectangle(tile.X, tile.Y, TileWidth, TileHeight), Color.White); // End of draw code public Point IsoToScreen(int isoX, int isoY, int widthHalf, int heightHalf, int xOffset, int yOffset) { Point newPoint = new Point(); newPoint.X = widthHalf * (isoX + isoY) + xOffset; newPoint.Y = heightHalf * (-isoX + isoY) + yOffset; return newPoint; } This code draws the tiles correctly. Now I wanted to do picking to select the tiles. For this, I tried coming up with equations of my own (including reversing the drawing equation) and I tried multiple solutions I found on the internet and none of these solutions worked. Trying out lots of solutions, I came upon one that didn't work, but it seemed like an axis was just inverted. I fiddled around with the equations and somehow managed to get it to actually work (but have no idea why it works), but while it's close, it still doesn't work. I'm not really sure how to describe the behaviour, but it changes the selection at wrong places, while being fairly close (sometimes spot on, sometimes a tile off, I believe never more off than the adjacent tile). This is the code I have for getting which tile coordinates are selected: public Point? ScreenToIso(int screenX, int screenY, int tileHeight, int offsetX, int offsetY) { Point? newPoint = null; int nX = -1; int nY = -1; int tX = screenX - offsetX; int tY = screenY - offsetY; nX = -(tY - tX / 2) / tileHeight; nY = (tY + tX / 2) / tileHeight; newPoint = new Point(nX, nY); return newPoint; } I have no idea why this code is so close, especially considering it doesn't even use the tile width and all my attempts to write an equation myself or use a solution I googled failed. Also, I don't think this code accounts for the area outside the "tile" (the transparent part of the tile image), for which I intend to add a color map, but even if that's true, it's not the problem as the selection sometimes switches on approx 25% or 75% of width or height. I'm thinking I've stumbled upon a wrong path and need to backtrack, but at this point, I'm not sure what to do so I hope someone can shed some light on my error or point me to the right path. It may be worth mentioning that my goal is to not only pick the tile. Each main tile will be divided into 5x5 smaller tiles which won't be drawn seperately from the whole main tile, but they will need to be picked out. I think a color map of a main tile with different colors for different coordinates within the main tile should take care of that though, which would fall within using a color map for the main tile (for the transparent parts of the tile, meaning parts that possibly belong to other tiles).

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• Stuff I learned at Innovate 2011

  - by David Dorf

  After returning from the NRF Innovate 2011 conference, I picked up few nuggets I thought I'd share here.  These thoughts are a bit random, but I hope they're useful nonetheless.Kevin Kelly opened the conference with six verbs that represent the future.  They were Screening, Interacting, Sharing, Accessing, Flowing, and Generating.  It struck me that these are all ways in which we merge the digital and physical worlds.  The internet of things continues to gain momentum.Some buzzwords:  deal economy, subscription commerce, discovery (instead of search), curationThat last one, curation, came up over and over.  Retailers, especially those in fashion, are finding value in helping their customers organize and present their own collections.  Social media has made sharing such collections easy, and mobile lets them take those ideas into the stores.  Mannequins are becoming less relevant.I heard from both HauteLook and Gilt Groupe (flash sale retailers) that a large percentage of their visits come from mobile devices, and most of those are iOS devices.  I find it interesting that even though Android has passed iPhone in units shipped (and will eventually pass iOS as a whole), its still the Apple crowd that leads the way.RadioShack mentioned their Holiday Heroes campaigned was very successful.  They asked their Foursquare users to check-in at a gym, coffee shop, and transportation hub as part of being a hero.  For this feat, customers were awarded a special badge that was worth 20% off at their next store visit. They claim a 3.5x increase in ticket size vs. regular check-in customers, and a 5x increase vs those that don't check-in at all.I also learned of RadioShack's #28 campaign, which is apparently one of the largest Twitter trends ever.  Their partnership with LIVESTRONG has gotten them followers, impressions, and credit for supporting the fight against cancer.The guys at Invodo showed the importance of video to e-commerce.  They gave compelling examples of how video can show customers the value of products better than just words.The highlight of the show was Guy Kawasaki's talk on innovation, which was not only informative but also peppered with humor and personality.  Back in the early days of the internet boom, Guy turned down the CEO position at Yahoo! because the commute was too long.  By his calculation, that was a $2B mistake.There are other good accounts of the conference at the NRF Blog.

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• We've completed the first iteration

  - by CliveT

  There are a lot of features in C# that are implemented by the compiler and not by the underlying platform. One such feature is a lambda expression. Since local variables cannot be accessed once the current method activation finishes, the compiler has to go out of its way to generate a new class which acts as a home for any variable whose lifetime needs to be extended past the activation of the procedure. Take the following example:     Random generator = new Random();     Func func = () = generator.Next(10); In this case, the compiler generates a new class called c_DisplayClass1 which is marked with the CompilerGenerated attribute. [CompilerGenerated] private sealed class c__DisplayClass1 {     // Fields     public Random generator;     // Methods     public int b__0()     {         return this.generator.Next(10);     } } Two quick comments on this: (i)    A display was the means that compilers for languages like Algol recorded the various lexical contours of the nested procedure activations on the stack. I imagine that this is what has led to the name. (ii)    It is a shame that the same attribute is used to mark all compiler generated classes as it makes it hard to figure out what they are being used for. Indeed, you could imagine optimisations that the runtime could perform if it knew that classes corresponded to certain high level concepts. We can see that the local variable generator has been turned into a field in the class, and the body of the lambda expression has been turned into a method of the new class. The code that builds the Func object simply constructs an instance of this class and initialises the fields to their initial values.     c__DisplayClass1 class2 = new c__DisplayClass1();     class2.generator = new Random();     Func func = new Func(class2.b__0); Reflector already contains code to spot this pattern of code and reproduce the form containing the lambda expression, so this is example is correctly decompiled. The use of compiler generated code is even more spectacular in the case of iterators. C# introduced the idea of a method that could automatically store its state between calls, so that it can pick up where it left off. The code can express the logical flow with yield return and yield break denoting places where the method should return a particular value and be prepared to resume.         {             yield return 1;             yield return 2;             yield return 3;         } Of course, there was already a .NET pattern for expressing the idea of returning a sequence of values with the computation proceeding lazily (in the sense that the work for the next value is executed on demand). This is expressed by the IEnumerable interface with its Current property for fetching the current value and the MoveNext method for forcing the computation of the next value. The sequence is terminated when this method returns false. The C# compiler links these two ideas together so that an IEnumerator returning method using the yield keyword causes the compiler to produce the implementation of an Iterator. Take the following piece of code.         IEnumerable GetItems()         {             yield return 1;             yield return 2;             yield return 3;         } The compiler implements this by defining a new class that implements a state machine. This has an integer state that records which yield point we should go to if we are resumed. It also has a field that records the Current value of the enumerator and a field for recording the thread. This latter value is used for optimising the creation of iterator instances. [CompilerGenerated] private sealed class d__0 : IEnumerable, IEnumerable, IEnumerator, IEnumerator, IDisposable {     // Fields     private int 1__state;     private int 2__current;     public Program 4__this;     private int l__initialThreadId; The body gets converted into the code to construct and initialize this new class. private IEnumerable GetItems() {     d__0 d__ = new d__0(-2);     d__.4__this = this;     return d__; } When the class is constructed we set the state, which was passed through as -2 and the current thread. public d__0(int 1__state) {     this.1__state = 1__state;     this.l__initialThreadId = Thread.CurrentThread.ManagedThreadId; } The state needs to be set to 0 to represent a valid enumerator and this is done in the GetEnumerator method which optimises for the usual case where the returned enumerator is only used once. IEnumerator IEnumerable.GetEnumerator() {     if ((Thread.CurrentThread.ManagedThreadId == this.l__initialThreadId)               && (this.1__state == -2))     {         this.1__state = 0;         return this;     } The state machine itself is implemented inside the MoveNext method. private bool MoveNext() {     switch (this.1__state)     {         case 0:             this.1__state = -1;             this.2__current = 1;             this.1__state = 1;             return true;         case 1:             this.1__state = -1;             this.2__current = 2;             this.1__state = 2;             return true;         case 2:             this.1__state = -1;             this.2__current = 3;             this.1__state = 3;             return true;         case 3:             this.1__state = -1;             break;     }     return false; } At each stage, the current value of the state is used to determine how far we got, and then we generate the next value which we return after recording the next state. Finally we return false from the MoveNext to signify the end of the sequence. Of course, that example was really simple. The original method body didn't have any local variables. Any local variables need to live between the calls to MoveNext and so they need to be transformed into fields in much the same way that we did in the case of the lambda expression. More complicated MoveNext methods are required to deal with resources that need to be disposed when the iterator finishes, and sometimes the compiler uses a temporary variable to hold the return value. Why all of this explanation? We've implemented the de-compilation of iterators in the current EAP version of Reflector (7). This contrasts with previous version where all you could do was look at the MoveNext method and try to figure out the control flow. There's a fair amount of things we have to do. We have to spot the use of a CompilerGenerated class which implements the Enumerator pattern. We need to go to the class and figure out the fields corresponding to the local variables. We then need to go to the MoveNext method and try to break it into the various possible states and spot the state transitions. We can then take these pieces and put them back together into an object model that uses yield return to show the transition points. After that Reflector can carry on optimising using its usual optimisations. The pattern matching is currently a little too sensitive to changes in the code generation, and we only do a limited analysis of the MoveNext method to determine use of the compiler generated fields. In some ways, it is a pity that iterators are compiled away and there is no metadata that reflects the original intent. Without it, we are always going to dependent on our knowledge of the compiler's implementation. For example, we have noticed that the Async CTP changes the way that iterators are code generated, so we'll have to do some more work to support that. However, with that warning in place, we seem to do a reasonable job of decompiling the iterators that are built into the framework. Hopefully, the EAP will give us a chance to find examples where we don't spot the pattern correctly or regenerate the wrong code, and we can improve things. Please give it a go, and report any problems.

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• How to send multiple MVP matrices to a vertex shader in OpenGL ES 2.0

  - by Carbon Crystal

  I'm working my way through optimizing the rendering of sprites in a 2D game using OpenGL ES and I've hit the limit of my knowledge when it comes to GLSL and vertex shaders. I have two large float buffers containing my vertex coordinates and texture coordinates (eventually this will be one buffer) for multiple sprites in order to perform a single glDrawArrays call. This works but I've hit a snag when it comes to passing the transformation matrix into the vertex shader. My shader code is: uniform mat4 u_MVPMatrix; attribute vec4 a_Position; attribute vec2 a_TexCoordinate; varying vec2 v_TexCoordinate; void main() { v_TexCoordinate = a_TexCoordinate; gl_Position = u_MVPMatrix * a_Position; } In Java (Android) I am using a FloatBuffer to store the vertex/texture data and this is provided to the shader like so: mGlEs20.glVertexAttribPointer(mVertexHandle, Globals.GL_POSITION_VERTEX_COUNT, GLES20.GL_FLOAT, false, 0, mVertexCoordinates); mGlEs20.glVertexAttribPointer(mTextureCoordinateHandle, Globals.GL_TEXTURE_VERTEX_COUNT, GLES20.GL_FLOAT, false, 0, mTextureCoordinates); (The Globals.GL_POSITION_VERTEX_COUNT etc are just integers with the value of 2 right now) And I'm passing the MVP (Model/View/Projection) matrix buffer like this: GLES20.glUniformMatrix4fv(mMVPMatrixHandle, 1, false, mModelCoordinates); (mModelCoordinates is a FloatBuffer containing 16-float sequences representing the MVP matrix for each sprite) This renders my scene but all the sprites share the same transformation, so it's obviously only picking the first 16 elements from the buffer which makes sense since I am passing in "1" as the second parameter. The documentation for this method says: "This should be 1 if the targeted uniform variable is not an array of matrices, and 1 or more if it is an array of matrices." So I tried modifying the shader with a fixed size array large enough to accomodate most of my scenarios: uniform mat4 u_MVPMatrix[1000]; But this lead to an error in the shader: cannot convert from 'uniform array of 4X4 matrix of float' to 'Position 4-component vector of float' This just seems wrong anyway as it's not clear to me how the shader would know when to transition to the next matrix anyway. Anyone have an idea how I can get my shader to pick up a different MVP matrix (i.e. the NEXT 16 floats) from my MVP buffer for every 4 vertices it encounters? (I am using GL_TRIANGLE_STRIP so each sprite has 4 vertices). Thanks!

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• How do I maintain a really poorly written code base?

  - by onlineapplab.com

  Recently I got hired to work on existing web application because of NDA I'm not at liberty to disclose any details but this application is working online in sort of a beta testing stage before official launch. We have a few hundred users right now but this number is supposed to significantly increase after official launch. The application is written in PHP (but it is irrelevant to my question) and is running on a dual xeon processor standalone server with severe performance problems. I have seen a lot of bad PHP code but this really sets new standards, especially knowing how much time and money was invested in developing it. it is as badly coded as possible there is PHP, HTML, SQL mixed together and code is repeated whenever it is necessary (especially SQL queries). there are not any functions used, not mentioning any OOP there are four versions of the app (desktop, iPhone, Android + other mobile) each version has pretty much the same functionality but was created by copying the whole code base, so now there are some differences between each version and it is really hard to maintain the database is really badly designed, which is causing severe performance problems also for fixing some errors in PHP code there is a lot of database triggers used which are updating data on SELECT and on INSERT so any testing is a nightmare Basically, any sin of a bad programming you can imagine is there for example it is not only possible to use SQL injections in literally every place but you can log into app if you use a login which doesn't exist and an empty password. The team which created this app is not working on it any more and there is an outsourced team which suggested that there are some problems but was never willing to deal with the elephant in the room partially because they've got a very comfortable contract and partially due to lack of skills (just my opinion). My job was supposed to be fixing some performance problems and extending existing functionality but first thing I was asked to do was a review of the existing code base. I've made my review and it was quite a shock for the management but my conclusions were after some time finally confirmed by other programmers. Management made it clear that it is not possible to start rewriting this app from scratch (which in my opinion should be done). We have to maintain its operable state and at the same time fix performance errors and extend the functionality. My question is, as I don't want just to patch the existing code, how to transform this into properly written app while keeping the existing code working at the same time? My plan is: Unify four existing versions into common code base (fixing only most obvious errors). Redesign db and use triggers to populate it with data (so data will be maintained in two formats at the same time) All new functionality will be written as separate project. Step by step transfer existing functionality into the new project After some time everything will be in the new project Some explanation about #2, right now it is practically impossible to make any updates in existing db any change requires reviewing whole code and making changes in many places. Is such plan feasible at all? Another solution is to walk away and leave the headache to someone else.

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• The State of the Internet -- Retail Edition

  - by David Dorf

  Over at Business Insider, there's a great presentation on the State of the Internet done in the Mary Meeker style.  Its 138 slides so I took the liberty of condensing it down to the 15 slides that directly apply to the retail industry.  However, I strongly recommend looking at the entire deck when you have time.  And while you're at it, Business Insider just launched a retail portal that's dedicated to retail industry content.  Please check it out as well.  My take-aways are below after the slide show. &amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;span id=&amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;XinhaEditingPostion&amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; [Source: Business Insider] Here are a few things I took away from the statistics: Facebook and Twitter are in their infancy.  While all retailers should have social programs, search is still the driver and therefore should receive the lions share of investment.  Facebook referrals are up 92% year-over-year, but Google still does 80% of the referrals. E-commerce continues to grow at breakneck speed, but in-store commerce is still king. Stores are not showrooms yet.  And social commerce pure-plays like Gilt and Groupon are tiny but worthy of some attention. There are more smartphones than PCs on the internet, and the disparity will continue to grow. PC growth will be flat and Tablet use will continue to grow. Mobile accounts for 12% of all internet traffic. A quarter of smartphone sales come from China, so anyone with a presence there better have a strong mobile strategy. 38% of people have used their smartphone to make a purchase, and many use their smartphones inside stores.  Smartphones are a critical consumer tool for shopping. Mobile is starting to drive significant traffic to e-commerce sites, especially tablets.  Tablet strategies are crucial for retailers. Mobile payments from the likes of Paypal and Square are growing quickly.  It will be interesting to see how NFC plays in this area. Mobile operating systems are losing market share to iOS and Android.  I wonder in Microsoft can finally make a dent? The internet is being dominated by mobile devices, and retailers had better have a strong mobile strategy to meet consumer demand.

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• Block-level deduplicating filesystem

  - by James Haigh

  I'm looking for a deduplicating copy-on-write filesystem solution for general user data such as /home and backups of it. It should use online/inline/synchronous deduplication at the block-level using secure hashing (for negligible chance of collisions) such as SHA256 or TTH. Duplicate blocks need not even touch the disk. The idea is that I should be able to just copy /home/<user> to an external HDD with the same such filesystem to do a backup. Simple. No messing around with incremental backups where corruption to any of the snapshots will nearly always break all later snapshots, and no need to use a specific tool to delete or 'checkout' a snapshot. Everything should simply be done from the file browser without worry. Can you imagine how easy this would be? I'd never have to think twice about backing-up again! I don't mind a performance hit, reliability is the main concern. Although, with specific implementations of cp, mv and scp, and a file browser plugin, these operations would be very fast, especially when there is a lot of duplication as they would only need to transfer the absent blocks. Accidentally using conventional copy tools that do not integrate with the FS would merely take longer, waste some bandwidth when copying remotely and waste some CPU, as the duplicate data would be re-read, re-transferred and re-hashed (although nothing would be re-written), but would absolutely not corrupt anything. (Some filesharing software may also be able to benefit by integrating with the FS.) So what's the best way of doing this? I've looked at some options: lessfs - Looks unmaintained. Any good? [Opendedup/SDFS][3] - Java? Could I use this on Android?! What does [SDFS][4] stand for? [Btrfs][5] - Some patches floating around on mailing list archives, but no real support. [ZFS][6] - Hopefully they'll one day relicense under a true Free/Opensource GPL-compatible licence. Also, 2 years ago I had a go at an attempt in Python using Fuse at the file-level to be used over the top of a typical solid FS such as EXT4, but I found Fuse for Python underdocumented and didn't manage to implement all of the system calls. My first post here, so I can't post more than 2 links until I get over 10 rep: [3]: http://www.opendedup.org/ [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=SDFS&action=edit&redlink=1 [5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Btrfs#Features [6]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS#Linux

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• SOA Summit - Oracle Session Replay

  - by Bruce Tierney

  If you think you missed the most recent Integration Developer News (IDN) "SOA Summit" 2013...good news, you didn't.  At least not the replay of the Oracle session titled: Three Solutionsfor Simplifying Cloud/On-Premises Integration As you will see in the reply below, this session introduces Three common reasons for integration complexity: Disparate Toolkits Lack of API Management Rigid, Brittle Infrastructure and then the Three solutions to these challenges: Unify Cloud On-premises Integration Enable Multi-channel Development with API Management Plan for the Unexpected - Future Readiness The last solution on future readiness describes how you can transition from being reactive to new trends, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), by modifying your integration strategy to enable business agility and how to recognize trends through Fast Data event processing ahead of your competition. Oracle SOA Suite customer SFpark's (San Francisco Metropolitan Transit Authority) implementation with API Management is covered as shown in the screenshot to the right This case study covers the core areas of API Management for partners to build their own applications by leveraging parking availability and real-time pricing as well as mobile enablement of data integrated by SOA Suite underneath.  Download the free SFpark app from the Apple and Android app stores to check it out. When looking into the future, the discussion starts with a historical look to better prepare for what comes next.   As shown in the image below, one of the next frontiers after mobile and cloud integration is a deeper level of direct "enterprise to customer" interaction.  Much of this relates to the Internet of Things.  Examples of IoT from the perspective of SOA and integration is also covered in the session. For example, early adopter Turkcell and their tracking of mobile phone users as they move from point A to B to C is shown in the image the right.   As you look into more "smart services" such as Location-Based Services, how "future ready" is your application infrastructure?  . . . Check out the replay by clicking the video image below to learn about these three challenges and solution including how to "future ready" your application infrastructure:

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