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• Interaction of a GUI-based App and Windows Service

  - by psubsee2003

  I am working on personal project that will be designed to help manage my media library, specifically recordings created by Windows Media Center. So I am going to have the following parts to this application: A Windows Service that monitors the recording folder. Once a new recording is completed that meets specific criteria, it will call several 3rd party CLI Applications to remove the commercials and re-encode the video into a more hard-drive friendly format. A controller GUI to be able to modify settings of the service, specifically add new shows to watch for, and to modify parameters for the CLI Applications A standalone (GUI-based) desktop application that can perform many of the same functions as the windows service, expect manually on specific files instead of automatically based on specific criteria. (It should be mentioned that I have limited experience with an application of this complexity, and I have absolutely zero experience with Windows Services) Since the 1st and 3rd bullet share similar functionality, my design plan is to pull the common functionality into a separate library shared by both parts applications, but these 2 components do not need to interact otherwise. The 2nd and 3rd bullets seem to share some common functionality, both will have a GUI, both will have to help define similar parameters (one to send to the service and the other to send directly to the CLI applications), so I can see some advantage to combining them into the same application. On the other hand, the standalone application (bullet #3) really does not need to interact with the service at all, except for possibly sharing a few common default parameters that can easily be put into an XML in a common location, so it seems to make more sense to just keep everything separate. The controller GUI (2nd bullet) is where I am stuck at the moment. Do I just roll this functionality (allow for user interaction with the service to update settings and criteria) into the standalone application? Or would it be a better design decision to keep them separate? Specifically, I'm worried about adding the complexity of communicating with the Windows Service to the standalone application when it doesn't need it. Is WCF the right approach to allow the controller GUI to interact with the Windows Service? Or is there a better alternative? At the moment, I don't envision a need for a significant amount of interaction, maybe just adding a new task once in a while and occasionally tweaking a parameter, but when something is changed, I do expect the windows service to immediately use the new settings.

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• Evaluating Scrum - is it okay to have people with multiple roles in a Scrum team?

  - by Wayne M

  I'm evaluating some Agile-style methodologies for possible introduction to my team. With Scrum, is it allowable to have the same person perform multiple roles? We have a small team of four developers and a web designer; we don't really have a lead (I fulfill this role), QA testers or business analysts, and all of our development tasks come from the CIO. Automated testing is seen as a total waste of time, and everything focuses on speed and not quality. What will happen is the CIO will come up with a development task (whether a feature or a bug) and give it to a developer (not to the whole team, to an individual, often in private or out of the blue) who is then expected to get it completed. The CIO doesn't gather requirements beyond the initial idea (and this has bitten us before as we'll implement something only to find out that none of the end users can use the feature, because they weren't consulted or even informed about it before we developed it, and in a panic we'll be told to revert the change) but requires say in/approval of everything that we do. First things first, is a Scrum style something to consider to introduce some standards and practices? From reading, Scrum seems to rely on a bit more trust and communication and focuses more on project management than on development, which is something we are completely devoid of as we don't have any semblance of project management at present. Second, if it can work is it unreasonable for someone, let's say myself, to act as both ScrumMaster and a developer? Or for a developer to also be the Product Owner (although chances are this will be the CIO, who isn't a developer)? I realize the Scrum Master and the Product Owner should be different people but at the same time I don't think we have anyone who has the qualities of a Product Owner (chances are it would turn into a "I need all these stories, I don't care how but get it done" type of deal and/or any freeze would be unfrozen on a whim). It seems to me that I might need to pick and choose pieces of Scrum/XP/Lean to compensate for how things are done currently, as it's highly unlikely that the mentality can be changed; for instance Pair Programming would never fly (seen as a waste, you get half the tasks done if you need two people for everything), TDD would be a hard sell, but short cycles would be welcomed.

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• Adjusting the Score on Oracle Text search results

  - by Kyle Hatlestad

  When you sort the results of a search by Score using OracleTextSearch as the search engine in WebCenter Content, the results coming back are based on the relevancy on the document.  In theory, the more relevant the search term is to the document, the higher ranked Score it should receive.  But in practice, the relevancy score can seem somewhat of a mystery.  It's not entirely clear how it ranks the importance of some documents over others based on the search term.  And often times, once a word appears a certain number of times within a document, the Score simply maxes out at 100 and the top results can be difficult to discern from one another.  Take for example the search for 'vacation' on this set of documents: Out of 7 results, 6 of them have a Score of '100' which means they are basically ranked the same.  This doesn't make the sort by Score very meaningful.   Besides sorting by relevance, you can also tell Oracle Text to sort by occurrence.  In that case, it is a much more predictable result in how they would be ranked. And for many cases provide a more meaningful sorting of results then relevance. To change this takes a small component change to the SearchOperatorMap resource.  By default, the query used for full-text searching looks like: <td>(ORACLETEXTSEARCH)fullText</td> <td>DEFINESCORE((%V), RELEVANCE * .1)</td> <td>text</td> Overriding this resource and changing it to: <td>(ORACLETEXTSEARCH)fullText</td> <td>DEFINESCORE((%V), OCCURRENCE * .01)</td>  <td>text</td> will force it to now use occurrence (note the change in scale to .01 as well).  So running the same search and sort options as the example above, the results come out quite a bit differently: In this case, there is a clear understanding of how the items rank.   And generally, if the search term appears 3 times more in one document then another, it's got a better chance of being a document I'm interested in.  You may or may not feel the relevance ranking is better then the search term occurrence, but this provides the opportunity to try an alternate method that might work better for your results.  A pre-built component is available for download here. There is one caveat in using this method.  The occurrence ranking also maxes out at 100, so if a search term is in the document more then that, the Score result will stay at 100.

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• Ubuntu 10.10 forgets desktop theme.

  - by Marcelo Cantos

  (I posed this question on superuser.com and haven't received any answers or comments, then I came across this site, so my apologies to anyone who has seen this already.) I am running Ubuntu in VirtualBox (on a Windows 7 host). Several times now, the top-level menu bar, the task bar — and seemingly every system dialog — have forgotten the out-of-the-box "Ambiance" theme they conform to when I first installed the system. Window captions still preserve the theme, but pretty much nothing else does. I have searched high and low on Google for assistance with this problem. Everything I've found suggests either running some gconf reset or deleting .gconf* .gnome* and other similar directories. I have followed all this advice and nothing works. I still get a boring Windows-95-style gray 3D look and feel. On previous occasions, after much messing around I've given up and rebooted the VM instance, and been pleasantly suprised to see the original "Ambience" theme restored throughout the UI, but invariably it disappears again some time later, usually after a reboot, so I can never figure out what I did that broke it. Here's a sample from Ubuntu's site of what I want it to look like. And here's a screenshot of my system as it currently looks. Also note that my GNOME Terminals normally have a nice purple semi-translucent look, and as can be seen from the screenshot, they are now just a solid matt white. This last time (just yesterday), trying numerous combinations all the usual tricks and rebooting several times hasn't fixed it, so here I am on SU wondering: How do I recover the out-of-the-box theme for my Gnome/Ubuntu desktop, noting that blowing away all config files — as suggested in many places online — fails to achieve this? It might help to know that it seems to fail either after I resize the VM instance, forcing the Ubuntu desktop to resize itself, or after I play around with Compiz settings. I haven't been able to figure out which of these it is, and it could be neither. Given the amount of pain I have had to go through to get things back to normal (and given that I am at a loss as to how to do so), it has proven difficult to definitively isolate the cause.

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• Regular Expression Transformation

  The regular expression transformation exposes the power of regular expression matching within the pipeline. One or more columns can be selected, and for each column an individual expression can be applied. The way multiple columns are handled can be set on the options page. The AND option means all columns must match, whilst the OR option means only one column has to match. If rows pass their tests then rows are passed down the successful match output. Rows that fail are directed down the alternate output. This transformation is ideal for validating data through the use of regular expressions. You can enter any expression you like, or select a pre-configured expression within the editor. You can expand the list of pre-configured expressions yourself. These are stored in a Xml file, %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SQL Server\nnn\DTS\PipelineComponents\RegExTransform.xml, where nnn represents the folder version, 90 for 2005, 100 for 2008 and 110 for 2012. If you want to use regular expressions to manipulate data, rather than just validating it, try the RegexClean Transformation. The component is provided as an MSI file, however for 2005/200 you will have to add the transformation to the Visual Studio toolbox by hand. This process has been described in detail in the related FAQ entry for How do I install a task or transform component?, just select Regular Expression Transformation in the Choose Toolbox Items window. Downloads The Regular Expression Transformation is available for SQL Server 2005, SQL Server 2008 (includes R2) and SQL Server 2012. Please choose the version to match your SQL Server version, or you can install multiple versions and use them side by side if you have more than one version of SQL Server installed. Regular Expression Transformation for SQL Server 2005 Regular Expression Transformation for SQL Server 2008 Regular Expression Transformation for SQL Server 2012 Version History SQL Server 2012Version 2.0.0.87 - SQL Server 2012 release. Includes upgrade support for both 2005 and 2008 packages to 2012. (5 Jun 2012) SQL Server 2008Version 2.0.0.87 - Release for SQL Server 2008 Integration Services. (10 Oct 2008) SQL Server 2005 Version 1.1.0.93 - Added option for you to choose AND or OR logic when multiple columns have been selected. Previously behaviour was OR only. (31 Jul 2008) Version 1.0.0.76 - Installer update and improved exception handling. (28 Jan 2008) Version 1.0.0.41 - Update for user interface stability fixes. (2 Aug 2006) Version 1.0.0.24 - SQL Server 2005 RTM Refresh. SP1 Compatibility Testing. (12 Jun 2006) Version 1.0.0.9 - Public Release for SQL Server 2005 IDW 15 June CTP (29 Aug 2005) Screenshots  

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• Forms&Reports upgrade characterset issues

  - by Lukasz Romaszewski

  Hello,This quick post is based on my findings during recent IMC workshops, especially those related to upgrading the Forms 6i/9i/10g applications to Forms 11g platform. The upgrade process itself is pretty straightforward and it basically requires recompiling your Forms application with a latest version of frmcmp tool. For some cases though, especially when you migrate from Forms 6i which is a client-server architecture to a 3-tier web solution (Forms 11g), you need to rewrite some parts of your code to make it run on new platform. The things you need to change range from reimplementing (using webutil library) typical client-site functionality like local IO operation, access to WinAPI, invoking DLLs etc. to changing deprecated or obsolete APIs like RUN_PRODUCT to RUN_REPORT_OBJECT. To automate those changes Oracle provides complete Java API  which allows you to manipulate the code and structure of you modules (JDAPI). To make it even easier we can use Forms Migration Assistant tool (written in Java using JDAPI) which is able to replace all occurrences of old API entries with their 11g equivalents or warn you when the replacement is not possible. You can also add your own replacement definitions in the search_replace.properties file. But you need to be aware of some issues that can be encountered using this tool. First of all if you are using some hard-coded text inside your triggers you may notice that after processing them by the Migration Assistant tool the national characters may be lost. This is due to the fact that you need to explicitly tell Java application (which MA really is) what kind of characterset it should use to read those text properly. In order to do that just add to a script calling MA the following line:  export JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS=-Dfile.encoding=<JAVA_ISO_ENCODING>  when the particular encoding must match the NLS_LANG in your Forms Builder environment (for example for Polish characterset you need to use ISO-8859-2).Second issue you can encounter related to national charactersets is lack of national symbols in you reports after migration. This can be solved by adding appropriate NLS_LANG entry in your reports environment. Sometimes instead of particular characterset you see "Greek characters" in your reports. This is just default font used by reports engine instead of the one defined in your report. To solve it you must copy fonts definitions from your old environment (e.g. Forms 10g installation) to appropriate directory in new installation (usually AFM folder). For more information about this and other issues please refer to https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type=NOT&doctype=BULLETIN&id=1297012.1at My Oracle Support site. That's all for today, stay tuned for more posts on this topic! Lukasz

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• SCCM 2007 Collections per OU

  - by VirtualizeIT

  Recently I wanted to create our SCCM collections setup as our Active Directory structure. I finally figured out how to create collections per OU of the domain. I decided to create a simple tutorial that may help other IT professionals the steps to complete this task.   1. Open the ConfigMgr and navigation to the collections. To navigate to the collections go to Site Database>Computer Management>Collections. 2. In the ‘Collections’ right-click and select New Collections. Then it will pop up a Wizards so you can enter the name of the collection and any notes that you may want to add that is associated with the collection.                       3. Next, select the database icon. In the ‘Name’ textbox enter the name of the query. I named mine ‘Query’ just for simplicity sake. After you enter the name select ‘Edit Query Statement…’ 4. Select the ‘Criteria’ tab 5. Select the icon that looks like a sun. 6. At this point you should see a dialog box like this…                     7. Next, click the ‘select’ button. 8. Under the ‘Attribute class’ scroll through until you see ’System Resource’ and for the ‘Attribute"’ scroll through you see ‘System OU Name’. It should look something like this…                 9. After that select OK. 10. In the ‘Value’ textbox enter the string that is associated with the OU in your domain. NOTE: If you don’t know your string name for your OU you can simply go to “Active Directory Users and Computers” and right-click on the OU and select properties. In the ‘object’ tab you should see the string under the ‘Canonical name of object”. That is the string that you put in the ‘Value’ text box. 11. After you enter the OU string name press OK>OK>OK>NEXT>NEXT>FINISH.   That’s it!   I hope this tutorial has help you understand how to create a collection through your OU structure.

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• 3D terrain map with Hexagon Grids (XNA)

  - by Rob

  I'm working on a hobby project (I'm a web/backend developer by day) and I want to create a 3D Tile (terrain) engine. I'm using XNA, but I can use MonoGame, OpenGL, or straight DirectX, so the answer does not have to be XNA specific. I'm more looking for some high level advice on how to approach this problem. I know about creating height maps and such, there are thousands of references out there on the net for that, this is a bit more specific. I'm more concerned with is the approach to get a 3D hexagon tile grid out of my terrain (since the terrain, and all 3d objects, are basically triangles). The first approach I thought about is to basically draw the triangles on the screen in the following order (blue numbers) to give me the triangles for terrain (black triangles) and then make hexes out of the triangles (red hex). http://screencast.com/t/ebrH2g5V This approach seems complicated to me since i'm basically having to draw 4 different types of triangles. The next approach I thought of was to use the existing triangles like I did for a square grid and get my hexes from 6 triangles as follows http://screencast.com/t/w9b7qKzVJtb8 This seems like the easier approach to me since there are only 2 types of triangles (i would have to play with the heights and widths to get a "perfect" hexagon, but the idea is the same. So I'm looking for: 1) Any suggestions on which approach I should take, and why. 2) How would I translate mouse position to a hexagon grid position (especially when moving the camera around), for example in the second image if the mouse pointer were the green circle, how would I determine to highlight that hexagon and then translating that into grid coordinates (assuming it is 0,0)? 3) Any references, articles, books, etc - to get me going in the right direction. Note: I've done hex grid's and mouse-grid coordinate conversion before in 2d. looking for some pointers on how to do the same in 3d. The result I would like to achieve is something similar to the following: http :// www. youtube .com / watch?v=Ri92YkyC3fw (sorry about the youtube link, but it will only let me post 2 links in this post... same rep problem i mention below...) Thanks for any help! P.S. Sorry for not posting the images inline, I apparently don't have enough rep on this stack exchange site.

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• OWB 11gR2 &ndash; OMB and File Editing

  - by David Allan

  Here we will see how we can use the IDE for editing OMB scripts. The 11gR2 release is based on the common Oracle platform IDE used also by JDeveloper. It comes with a bunch of standard behavior for editing and rendering code. One of the lesser known things is that if you drop a text file into OWB you can edit it. So you can drop your tcl scripts right into OWB and edit in-place, and don’t need another IDE like Eclipse just for this task. Cool, so you have the file here. There may be no line numbers, you can toggle line numbers on by right clicking in the gutter. If we edit the file within the OWB IDE, the save is a little different from normal. OWB doesn’t normally manipulate files so things like ctrl-s to save, saves the OWB objects, but if you edit a file the closing of the file will ask if you want to save it – check it out. Now we enter the realm of ‘he who dares’…. Note the IDE doesn’t know about tcl files out of the box, so you see above there is no syntax highlighting. The code is identified by the extension… .java is java, .html is HTML etc. With OWB, the OMB scripts are tcl, we usually have .tcl extension on these files. One of the things we can do to trick up the syntax highlighting is to simply rename the file to have a .java suffix, then all of a sudden we get syntax highlighting, see the illustration here where side by side we see a the file with a .java extension and a .tcl extension. Not ideal pretending to be .java but gets us a way to having something more useful than notepad. We can then change the syntax highlighting such that we get Eclipse like highlighting within the IDE from the Tools Preferences option; You then get the Eclipse like rendering albeit using a little tweak on the file names… Might be useful if you are doing any kind of heavy duty OMB script development and just want a single IDE. The OMBPlus panel is then at hand for executing and testing it out.

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• What is the difference between development and R&D?

  - by MainMa

  I was asked by a colleague to explain clearly the difference between ordinary development and research and development (R&D) and was unable to do it. After reading Wikipedia, I still don't have the precise answer. According to Wikipedia (slightly modified): There are two primary models: In one model, the primary function is to develop new products; in the other model, the primary function is to discover and create new knowledge about scientific and technological topics for the purpose of uncovering and enabling development of valuable new products, processes, and services. The first model is confusing. Does it mean that development (not R&D) consists exclusively in adding new features to a product, solving bugs and doing maintenance? What if something which was previously developed as a new feature becomes a separate product? The second model is less confusing, but still, how to qualify whether something is new knowledge or existent knowledge which is just rediscovered? Later, Wikipedia adds that ordinary development is different from R&D because of its: nearly immediate profit or immediate improvement. It's still not clear enough. How to qualify "nearly immediate profit"? What if a task has an immediate profit but requires heavy research? Or if it is basic but has uncertain profit, like the enforcement of a common style over the codebase? For example, does it belong to development or R&D to: Develop an engine which abstracts the access to the database, simplifying and shortening enormously the code of other applications (existent or ones which will be written in future) which should access to the database? Establish a new service-oriented architecture for the entire organization of company resources, in order to move from a bunch of separate and autonomous applications to a set of well-organized, interconnected web services, like what is used by Amazon? Design a new communication protocol to allow faster replication of data between two data centers of the company? Conceive a new type of software testing while working on a specific product, knowing that this type of testing will improve/simplify the testing process? Prove that Functional programming is more appropriate than OOP for a specific application, based on evidence, logic and previous experience? Enhance the existent application by adding gestures on tactile screens, after doing studies and testing that shows that those gestures improve the productivity of the users by a ratio of at least 1.4 for a precise set of tasks? Find a way to strongly enhance the Power usage effectiveness (PUE) of a data center? Create a Domain-Specific Language (DSL)? In short, how could I determine whether I'm doing R&D while working on something?

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for 2012-04-05

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Webcast: Oracle Maximum Availability Architecture Best Practices event.on24.com Date: Thursday, April 12, 2012 Time: 10:00 AM PDT Oracle expert Tom Kyte discusses how Oracle’s Maximum Availability Architecture can help to minimize the costs and risk of downtime. Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center 12c Launch - Interactive Webcast and Live Chat www.oracle.com Thursday, April 12, 2012. 9 a.m. PT / 12 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. GMT. Speakers: Steve Wilson (VP Systems Management, Oracle) John Fowler (Exec VP Systems, Oracle) Brad Cameron (VP Development, Oracle Fusion Middleware) Bill Nesheim (VP Oracle Solaris) Dennis Reno (VP Customer Portal Experience, Oracle) Mike Wookey (Chief Architect, Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center) Prasad Pai (Sr Director, Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center) 2012 Real World Performance Tour Dates |Performance Tuning | Performance Engineering www.ioug.org Coming to your town: a full day of real world database performance with Tom Kyte, Andrew Holdsworth, and Graham Wood. Rochester, NY - March 8 Los Angeles, CA - April 30 Orange County, CA - May 1 Redwood Shores, CA - May 3 Oracle Technology Network Developer Day: MySQL - New York www.oracle.com Wednesday, May 02, 2012 8:00 AM – 4:30 PM Grand Hyatt New York 109 East 42nd Street, Grand Central Terminal New York, NY 10017 Webcast Series: Data Warehousing Best Practices event.on24.com April 19, 2012 - Best Practices for Workload Management of a Data Warehouse on Oracle Exadata May 10, 2012 - Best Practices for Extreme Data Warehouse Performance on Oracle Exadata How to create a Global Rule that stores a document’s folder path in a custom metadata field | Nicolas Montoya blogs.oracle.com An illustrated how-to from Oracle Fusion Middleware A-Team blogger Nicolas Montoya. Get Proactive with Fusion Middleware | Daniel Mortimer blogs.oracle.com Daniel Mortimer shows how to access "a one stop shop for navigating to proactive support material, tools, and communication channels related to Oracle Fusion Middleware." Build an enterprise on 'other peoples' work', via SOA and cloud | Joe McKendrick www.zdnet.com Are you down with OPW? Joe McKendrick's synopsis of a recent presentation by David Linthicum focuses on reuse. Oracle Fusion Middleware Security: Unsolicited login with OAM 11g | Chris Johnson fusionsecurity.blogspot.com Chris Johnson shows how to create a shopping cart login model using "plain old HTML." How to use the Human WorkFlow Web Services | Edwin Biemond biemond.blogspot.com Oracle ACE Edwin Biemond shows how to invoke two WorkFlow web services to query the Human task in Oracle SOA Suite with your own ordering and restrictions. Bad Practice Use Case for LOV Performance Implementation in ADF BC | Andrejus Baranovskis andrejusb.blogspot.com "If you want to learn something well, there is nothing better [than] to learn bad practices first," says Oracle ACE Director Andrejus Baranovskis. Thought for the Day "The best meetings get real work done. When your people learn that your meetings actually accomplish something, they will stop making excuses to be elsewhere." — Larry Constantine

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

  - by Jonathan

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

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• Mixing Forms and Token Authentication in a single ASP.NET Application

  - by Your DisplayName here!

  I recently had the task to find out how to mix ASP.NET Forms Authentication with WIF’s WS-Federation. The FormsAuth app did already exist, and a new sub-directory of this application should use ADFS for authentication. Minimum changes to the existing application code would be a plus ;) Since the application is using ASP.NET MVC this was quite easy to accomplish – WebForms would be a little harder, but still doable. I will discuss the MVC solution here. To solve this problem, I made the following changes to the standard MVC internet application template: Added WIF’s WSFederationAuthenticationModule and SessionAuthenticationModule to the modules section. Add a WIF configuration section to configure the trust with ADFS. Added a new authorization attribute. This attribute will go on controller that demand ADFS (or STS in general) authentication. The attribute logic is quite simple – it checks for authenticated users – and additionally that the authentication type is set to Federation. If that’s the case all is good, if not, the redirect to the STS will be triggered. public class RequireTokenAuthenticationAttribute : AuthorizeAttribute {     protected override bool AuthorizeCore(HttpContextBase httpContext)     {         if (httpContext.User.Identity.IsAuthenticated &&             httpContext.User.Identity.AuthenticationType.Equals( WIF.AuthenticationTypes.Federation, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))         {             return true;         }                     return false;     }     protected override void HandleUnauthorizedRequest(AuthorizationContext filterContext)     {                    // do the redirect to the STS         var message = FederatedAuthentication.WSFederationAuthenticationModule.CreateSignInRequest( "passive", filterContext.HttpContext.Request.RawUrl, false);         filterContext.Result = new RedirectResult(message.RequestUrl);     } } That’s it ;) If you want to know why this works (and a possible gotcha) – read my next post.

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• June 23, 1983: First Successful Test of the Domain Name System [Geek History]

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Nearly 30 years ago the first Domain Name System (DNS) was tested and it changed the way we interacted with the internet. Nearly impossible to remember number addresses became easy to remember names. Without DNS you’d be browsing a web where numbered addresses pointed to numbered addresses. Google, for example, would look like http://209.85.148.105/ in your browser window. That’s assuming, of course, that a numbers-based web every gained enough traction to be popular enough to spawn a search giant like Google. How did this shift occur and what did we have before DNS? From Wikipedia: The practice of using a name as a simpler, more memorable abstraction of a host’s numerical address on a network dates back to the ARPANET era. Before the DNS was invented in 1983, each computer on the network retrieved a file called HOSTS.TXT from a computer at SRI. The HOSTS.TXT file mapped names to numerical addresses. A hosts file still exists on most modern operating systems by default and generally contains a mapping of the IP address 127.0.0.1 to “localhost”. Many operating systems use name resolution logic that allows the administrator to configure selection priorities for available name resolution methods. The rapid growth of the network made a centrally maintained, hand-crafted HOSTS.TXT file unsustainable; it became necessary to implement a more scalable system capable of automatically disseminating the requisite information. At the request of Jon Postel, Paul Mockapetris invented the Domain Name System in 1983 and wrote the first implementation. The original specifications were published by the Internet Engineering Task Force in RFC 882 and RFC 883, which were superseded in November 1987 by RFC 1034 and RFC 1035.Several additional Request for Comments have proposed various extensions to the core DNS protocols. Over the years it has been refined but the core of the system is essentially the same. When you type “google.com” into your web browser a DNS server is used to resolve that host name to the IP address of 209.85.148.105–making the web human-friendly in the process. Domain Name System History [Wikipedia via Wired] What is a Histogram, and How Can I Use it to Improve My Photos?How To Easily Access Your Home Network From Anywhere With DDNSHow To Recover After Your Email Password Is Compromised

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• How does rc job work / order of (contradicting) "start on ..." and "stop on ..." stanzas

  - by Binarus

  Hi, I just can't understand how Upstart's rc job definition in Natty 11.04 works. To illustrate the problem, here is the definition (empty lines and comments are left out): start on runlevel [0123456] stop on runlevel [!$RUNLEVEL] export RUNLEVEL export PREVLEVEL console output env INIT_VERBOSE task exec /etc/init.d/rc $RUNLEVEL Let's suppose we currently are in runlevel 2 and the rc job is stopped (that is exactly the situation after booting my box and logging in via SSH). Now, let's assume that the system switches to runlevel 3, for example due to a command like "telinit 3" given by root. What will happen to the rc job? Obviously, the rc job will be started since it is currently stopped and the event runlevel 3 is matching the start events. But from now on, things are unclear to me: According to the manual $RUNLEVEL evaluates to the new runlevel when the job is started (that means 3 in our example). Therefore, the next stanza "stop on runlevel [!$RUNLEVEL]" translates to "stop on runlevel [!3]"; that means we have a first stanza which will trigger the job, but the second stanza will never stop the job and seems to be useless. Since I know that the Ubuntu / Upstart people won't do useless things, I must be heavily misunderstanding something. I would be grateful for any explanation. While trying to understand this, an additional question came to my mind. If I had contradicting start and stop triggers, for example start on foo stop on foo what would happen? I swear I never will do that, but I am nevertheless very interested in how Upstart handles that on the theoretical level. Thank you very much! Editing the question as a reaction on geekosaur's first answer: I can see the parallelism, but it is not that easy (at least, not to me). Let's assume the job aurrently is still running, and a new runlevel event comes in (of course, the new runlevel is different from the current one). Then, the following should happen: 1) The job is single instance. That means that "start on ..." won't be triggered since the job is currently running; $RUNLEVEL is not touched. 2) "stop on ..." will be triggered since the new runlevel is different from $RUNLEVEL, so the job will be aborted. 3) Now, the job is stopped and waiting. I can't see how it is restarted with the new runlevel. AFAIK, initctl emits events only once, so "start on ..." won't be triggered and the new runlevel won't be entered. I know that I still misunderstanding something, and I am grateful for explanations. Thank you very much!

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• TechCast Live: "Java and Oracle, One Year Later" Replay Now Available

  - by Justin Kestelyn

  Earlier this week I had the opportunity to chat with Ajay Patel, Oracle's VP leading the Java Evangelist team, about "the state of the union" wrt Oracle and Java. Take a look: And here are some choice quotes, some paraphrased, as helpfully transcribed by Java evangelist Terrence Barr: "One key thing we have learned ... Java is not just a platform, it is also an ecosystem, and you can't have an ecosystem without a community." "The objectives, strategically [for Java at Oracle] have been pretty clear: How do we drive adoption, how do we build a larger, stronger developer community, how do we really make the platform much more competitive." "It's about transparency, involvement. IBM, RedHat, Apple have all agreed to working with us to make OpenJDK the best platform for open source development ... it is a sign that the community has been waiting to move the Java platform forward." "It's not just about Oracle anymore, it's about Java, the technology, the community, the developer base, and how we work with them to move the innovation forward." "Java is strategic to Oracle, and the community is strategic for Java to be successful ... it is critical to our business." On JavaFX 2.0: "... is coming to beta soon, with a release planned in second half [of 2011] ... will give you a new, high-performance graphics engine, the new API for JavaFX ... you will see a very strong, relevant platform for levering rich media platforms." On the JDK and SE: "... aggressively moving forward, JDK 7 is now code complete ... looking good for getting JDK 7 out by summer as we promised. Started work on JDK 8, Jigsaw and Lambda are moving along nicely, on track for JDK 8 release next year ... good progress." On Java EE and Glassfish: "... Very excited to have Glassfish 3.1 released, with clustering and management capabilities ... working with the JCP to shortly submit a number of JSRs for Java EE 7 ... You'll see Java EE 7 becoming the platform for cloud-based development." "You will see Oracle continue to step up to this role of Java steward, making sure that the language, the technology, the platform ... is competitive, relevant, and widely adopted." Making progress!

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• OpenGL position from depth is wrong

  - by CoffeeandCode

  My engine is currently implemented using a deferred rendering technique, and today I decided to change it up a bit. First I was storing 5 textures as so: DEPTH24_STENCIL8 - Depth and stencil RGBA32F - Position RGBA10_A2 - Normals RGBA8 x 2 - Specular & Diffuse I decided to minimize it and reconstruct positions from the depth buffer. Trying to figure out what is wrong with my method currently has not been fun :/ Currently I get this: which changes whenever I move the camera... weird Vertex shader really simple #version 150 layout(location = 0) in vec3 position; layout(location = 1) in vec2 uv; out vec2 uv_f; void main(){ uv_f = uv; gl_Position = vec4(position, 1.0); } Fragment shader Where the fun (and not so fun) stuff happens #version 150 uniform sampler2D depth_tex; uniform sampler2D normal_tex; uniform sampler2D diffuse_tex; uniform sampler2D specular_tex; uniform mat4 inv_proj_mat; uniform vec2 nearz_farz; in vec2 uv_f; ... other uniforms and such ... layout(location = 3) out vec4 PostProcess; vec3 reconstruct_pos(){ float z = texture(depth_tex, uv_f).x; vec4 sPos = vec4(uv_f * 2.0 - 1.0, z, 1.0); sPos = inv_proj_mat * sPos; return (sPos.xyz / sPos.w); } void main(){ vec3 pos = reconstruct_pos(); vec3 normal = texture(normal_tex, uv_f).rgb; vec3 diffuse = texture(diffuse_tex, uv_f).rgb; vec4 specular = texture(specular_tex, uv_f); ... do lighting ... PostProcess = vec4(pos, 1.0); // Just for testing } Rendering code probably nothing wrong here, seeing as though it always worked before this->gbuffer->bind(); gl::Clear(gl::COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | gl::DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT); gl::Enable(gl::DEPTH_TEST); gl::Enable(gl::CULL_FACE); ... bind geometry shader and draw models and shiz ... gl::Disable(gl::DEPTH_TEST); gl::Disable(gl::CULL_FACE); gl::Enable(gl::BLEND); ... bind textures and lighting shaders shown above then draw each light ... gl::BindFramebuffer(gl::FRAMEBUFFER, 0); gl::Clear(gl::COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | gl::DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT); gl::Disable(gl::BLEND); ... bind screen shaders and draw quad with PostProcess texture ... Rinse_and_repeat(); // not actually a function ;) Why are my positions being output like they are?

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• Why would more CPU cores on virtual machine slow compile times?

  - by Sid

  [edit#2] If anyone from VMWare can hit me up with a copy of VMWare Fusion, I'd be more than happy to do the same as a VirtualBox vs VMWare comparison. Somehow I suspect the VMWare hypervisor will be better tuned for hyperthreading (see my answer too) I'm seeing something curious. As I increase the number of cores on my Windows 7 x64 virtual machine, the overall compile time increases instead of decreasing. Compiling is usually very well suited for parallel processing as in the middle part (post dependency mapping) you can simply call a compiler instance on each of your .c/.cpp/.cs/whatever file to build partial objects for the linker to take over. So I would have imagined that compiling would actually scale very well with # of cores. But what I'm seeing is: 8 cores: 1.89 sec 4 cores: 1.33 sec 2 cores: 1.24 sec 1 core: 1.15 sec Is this simply a design artifact due to a particular vendor's hypervisor implementation (type2:virtualbox in my case) or something more pervasive across more VMs to make hypervisor implementations more simpler? With so many factors, I seem to be able to make arguments both for and against this behavior - so if someone knows more about this than me, I'd be curious to read your answer. Thanks Sid [edit:addressing comments] @MartinBeckett: Cold compiles were discarded. @MonsterTruck: Couldn't find an opensource project to compile directly. Would be great but can't screwup my dev env right now. @Mr Lister, @philosodad: Have 8 hw threads, using VirtualBox, so should be 1:1 mapping without emulation @Thorbjorn: I have 6.5GB for the VM and a smallish VS2012 project - it's quite unlikely that I'm swapping in/out trashing the page file. @All: If someone can point to an open source VS2010/VS2012 project, that might be a better community reference than my (proprietary) VS2012 project. Orchard and DNN seem to need environment tweaking to compile in VS2012. I really would like to see if someone with VMWare Fusion also sees this (for VMWare vs VirtualBox compartmentalization) Test details: Hardware: Macbook Pro Retina CPU : Core i7 @ 2.3Ghz (quad core, hyper threaded = 8 cores in windows task manager) Memory : 16 GB Disk : 256GB SSD Host OS: Mac OS X 10.8 VM type: VirtualBox 4.1.18 (type 2 hypervisor) Guest OS: Windows 7 x64 SP1 Compiler: VS2012 compiling a solution with 3 C# Azure projects Compile times measure by VS2012 plugin called 'VSCommands' All tests run 5 times, first 2 runs discarded, last 3 averaged

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• Any ideas on reducing lag in terrain generation?

  - by l5p4ngl312

  Ok so here's the deal. I've written an isometric engine that generates terrain based on camera values using 2D perlin noise. I planned on doing 3D but first I need to work out the lag issues I'm having. I will try to explain how I am doing this so that maybe someone can spot where I am going wrong. I know it should not be this laggy. There is the abstract class Block which right now just contains render(). BlockGrass, etc. extend this class and each has code in the render function to create a textured quad at the given position. Then there is the class Chunk which has the function Generate() and setBlocksInArea(). Generate uses 2D perlin noise to make a height map and stores the heights in a 2D array. It stores the positions of each block it generates in blockarray[x][y][z]. The chunks are 8x8x128. In the main game class there is a 3D array called blocksInArea. The blocks in this array are what gets rendered. When a chunk generates, it adds its blocks to this array at the correct index. It is like this so chunks can be saved to the hard drive (even though they aren't yet) but there can still be optimization with the rendering that you wouldn't have if you rendered each chunk separately. Here's where the laggy part comes in: When the camera moves to a new chunk, a row of chunks generates on the end of the axis that the camera moved on. But it still has to move the other chunks up/down in the blocksInArea (render) array. It does this by calculating the new position in the array and doing the Chunk.setBlocksInArea(): for(int x = 0; x < 8; x++){ for(int y = 0; y < 8; y++){ nx = x+(coordX - camCoordX)*8 ny = y+(coordY - camCoordY)*8 for(int z = 0; z < height[x][y]; z++){ blockarray[x][y][z] = Game.blocksInArea[nx][ny][z]; } } } My reasoning was that this would be much faster than doing the perlin noise all over again, but there are still little spikes of lag when you move in between chunks. Edit: Would it be possible to create a 3 dimensional array list so that shifting of chunks within the array would not be neccessary?

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• EPM Planning (Hyperion) V11.1.2 Implementation Hands-On Boot-camp

  - by Mike.Hallett(at)Oracle-BI&EPM

  5-Day Training for Partners: 29th October - 2nd November 2012, London (UK): REGISTER Here This FREE for Partners 5-day workshop is designed to provide implementation instruction on Oracle Hyperion EPM Planning.  This boot-camp is intended for prospective implementers of the Planning and Budgeting functionality of Oracle EPM or implementers that are currently familiar with the basics of EPM Planning and looking to strengthen their base of knowledge in the product. The class begins with an overview of Essbase, the foundation of Hyperion Planning. It provides a general overview of Planning and Planning terms, the architecture of all the Planning components, and how they are commonly used. The course goes over all the steps to create an application from scratch. This involves some preparation work outside of Planning and leads to developing the application in both the Planning Windows and Web clients. Participants will modify existing dimensions and build out the hierarchies using the Web client. Topics Covered The boot-camp shows developers how to build out dimensions using Classic Planning and by using EPMA. It covers the mechanics and cover strategies for automating the build process such as interface tables. It reviews data loads using Load Rules to load the Planning database. The course focuses on tasks that end-users must perform during the planning cycle. It walks students through creating and modifying forms, working with forms to enter data, adding annotations, and the rest of the form features such as running business rules and managing task lists. It covers how to use the forms in the Smart View client and finishes up the end-user perspective by going through Workflow Management and the process of submitting a plan for review. The final section of the course covers Security and other administration topics such as automation and deployment. Prerequisites Ideal participants are Oracle partners (SIs and resellers) with a background in business information systems and a clientele of customers with ongoing or prospective EPM initiatives. Alternatively, partners with the background described above and an interest in evolving their practice to a similar profile are suitable participants. Further online OPN guided learning path information and webinars are available at: Oracle Hyperion Planning 11 Essentials. Please note that attendees are required to bring a laptop. View here laptop requirements and detailed agenda. ·       REGISTER Here : acceptance is subject to availability and your place will be confirmed within two weeks  ( and for help see the Partner Registration Guide ). Training Location: Oracle Corporation UK Ltd Columbus Room Customer Visit Center 1 South Place London EC2M 2RB Training Dates: 29th October - 2nd November  9:30 am – 5:00 pm BST For more information please contact [email protected].

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• XNA Moddable Game - Architecture Design and Reflection

  - by David K

  I've decided to embark on an XNA moddable game project of a simple rogue style. For all purposes of this question, I'm going to not be using a scripting engine, but rather allow modders to directly compile assemblies that are loaded by the game at run time. I know about the security problems this may raise. So in order to expose the moddable content, I have gone about creating a generic project in XNA called MyModel. This contains a number of interfaces that all inherit from IPlugin, such as IGameSystem, IRenderingSystem, IHud, IInputSystem etc. Then I've created another project called MyRogueModel. This references MyModel project, and holds interfaces such as IMonster, IPlayer, IDungeonGenerator, IInventorySystem. More rogue specific interfaces, but again, all interfaces in this project inherit from IPlugin. Then finally, I've created another project called MyRogueGame, that references both MyModel and MyRogueModel projects. This project will be the game that you run and play. Here I have put the actual implementation of the Monster, DungeonGenerator, InputSystem and RenderingSystem classes. This project will also scan the mods directory during run time and load any IPlugins it finds using reflection and override anything it finds from the default. For example if it finds a new implementation of the DungeonGenerator it will use that one instead. Now my question is, in order to get this far, I have effectively 2 projects that contain nothing but interfaces... which seems a little... strange ? For people to create mods for the game, I would give them both the MyModel and MyRogueModel assemblies in which they would reference. I'm not sure whether this is the right way to do it, but my reasoning goes as follows : If I write 1 input system, I can use it in any game I write. If I create 3 rogue like games, and a modder writes 1 rendering system, that modder could use the rendering system for all 3 games, because it all comes from the MyModel project. I come from a more web based C# role, so having empty interface projects doesn't seem wrong, its just something I haven't done before. Before I embark on something that might be crazy, I'd just like to know whether this is a foolish idea and whether there's a better (or established) design principle I should be following ?

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• How to force a clock update using ntp?

  - by ysap

  I am running Ubuntu on an ARM based embedded system that lacks a battery backed RTC. The wake-up time is somewhere during 1970. Thus, I use the NTP service to update the time to the current time. I added the following line to /etc/rc.local file: sudo ntpdate -s time.nist.gov However, after startup, it still takes a couple of minutes until the time is updated, during which period I cannot work effectively with tar and make. How can I force a clock update at any given time? UPDATE 1: The following (thanks to Eric and Stephan) works fine from command line, but fails to update the clock when put in /etc/rc.local: $ date ; sudo service ntp stop ; sudo ntpdate -s time.nist.gov ; sudo service ntp start ; date Thu Jan 1 00:00:58 UTC 1970 * Stopping NTP server ntpd [ OK ] * Starting NTP server [ OK ] Thu Feb 14 18:52:21 UTC 2013 What am I doing wrong? UPDATE 2: I tried following the few suggestions that came in response to the 1st update, but nothing seems to actually do the job as required. Here's what I tried: Replace the server to us.pool.ntp.org Use explicit paths to the programs Remove the ntp service altogether and leave just sudo ntpdate ... in rc.local Remove the sudo from the above command in rc.local Using the above, the machine still starts at 1970. However, when doing this from command line once logged in (via ssh), the clock gets updated as soon as I invoke ntpdate. Last thing I did was to remove that from rc.local and place a call to ntpdate in my .bashrc file. This does update the clock as expected, and I get the true current time once the command prompt is available. However, this means that if the machine is turned on and no user is logged in, then the time never gets updates. I can, of course, reinstall the ntp service so at least the clock is updated within a few minutes from startup, but then we're back at square 1. So, is there a reason why placing the ntpdate command in rc.local does not perform the required task, while doing so in .bashrc works fine?

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• JavaOne: Parleys.com, Spring Vs. Java EE and HTML5 tooling

  - by delabassee

  Parleys.com, a 2012 Duke's Choice Award winner, is an E-Learning platform that host content from different sources (conferences, JUGs meetings, etc.). There is a lot of technical content available for online but also offline consumption, including many sessions on Java EE. Parleys has just released, for free, all the Devoxx 2011 sessions (video and slides sync'ed!). From a technical point of view, Parleys.com is interesting as they have switched from Spring to Java EE 6 to avoid being locked in a proprietary framework. During the GlassFish Community BoF, Stephan Janssen (Parleys.com and Devoxx founder) also presented how GlassFish is used to support 2000 concurrent Parleys users over a cluster of 2 GlassFish instances. Talking about Java EE and/or Spring, Harshad Oak has posted an update on the 'Spring Vs. Java EE' panel discussion that took place on Tuesday. As Arun said standards such as Java EE does not necessarily refrain innovation: "JBoss Forge & Arquillian from RedHat are great examples of innovation in the JavaEE community. Standardization is important but innovation does continue even within that framework." Simplicity, productivity along with HTML5 are the driving themes of Java EE 7. In terms of simplicity and productivity, the developer experience can also be improved by the tooling. Every NetBeans release comes with a large set of improvements, the just released NetBeans 7.3 beta is no exception. The goal of ‘NB 7.3’s Project Easel’ is to improve HTML5 development, something that will be handy for Java EE 7 developers. Project Easel can, for example, communicate directly to Chrome's WebKit engine, this feature was shown during Sunday's Technical Keynote at the end of the Java EE section. In this beta release, Chrome and the embedded JavaFX browser are the only supported browsers but the NetBeans team plan to add support, over time, for other WebKit based browsers. NetBans 7.3 beta NetBeans 7.3 screenscasts Today (i.e. Wednesday 3rd) is also the final exhibition day, so make sure to visit the Java EE and the GlassFish pods on the Java DEMOgrounds (Hilton Grand Ballroom, 9:30 am - 5:00 pm). Finally, here are some Java EE and GlassFish related activities worth attending today if you are at JavaOne : Wednesday October 3rd Time Title Location 8:30-9:30am What's New in Servlet 3.1: An Overview Parc 55 Mission 8:30-9:30am Bean Validation 1.1: What's New Under the Hood Parc 55Cyril Magnin II/III 10:00-11:00am JSR 353: Java API for JSON Processing Parc 55 Mission 10:00-12:00pm Tutorial : Integrating Your Service into the GlassFish PaaS Platform Parc 55 Devisidero 11:30-12:30pm What's New in JSF: A Complete Tour of JSF 2.2 Parc 55Cyril Magnin I 11:30-12:30pm Best of Both Worlds: Java Persistence with NoSQL and SQL Parc 55 Mission 1:00-2:00pm Sharding Middleware to Achieve Elasticity and High Availability in the Cloud Parc 55Market Street 1:00-2:00pm Pimp My RESTful Java Applications Parc 55Cyril Magnin I 3:00-4:00pm Migrating Spring to Java EE Parc 55Cyril Magnin II/III 4:30-5:30pm JavaEE.Next(): Java EE 7, 8, and Beyond Parc 55Cyril Magnin II/III 4:30-5:30pm HTML5 WebSocket and Java Parc 55Cyril Magnin I 4:30-5:30pm Easy Middleware for Your Embedded Device Nikko Ballroom II/III

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• Using jQuery to Make a Field Read Only in SharePoint

  - by Mark Rackley

  Okay… this will be my shortest blog post EVER. Very little rambling.. I promise, and I’m sure this has been blogged more than once, so I apologize for adding to the noise, but like I always say, I blog for myself so I have a global bookmark. So,let’s say you have a field on a SharePoint Form and you want to make it read only. You COULD just open it up in SPD and easily make it read only, but some people are purists and don’t like use SPD or modify the default new/edit/disp forms. Put me in the latter camp, I try to avoid modifying these forms and it seemed like such a simple task that I didn’t want to create a new un-ghosted form.  So.. how do you do it? It’s only one line of jQuery. All you need to do is find the id for your input field and capture the keypress on it so that it cannot be modified (you should probably capture clicks for dropdowns/checkboxes/etc. but I didn’t need to).  Anyway, here’s the entire script: <script src="jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> jQuery(document).ready(function($){ //capture keypress on our read only field and return false $('#idOfInputField').keypress(function() { return false; }); }) </script>   You can find the ID of your input field by viewing the source, this ID stays consistent as long as you don’t muck with the list or form in the wrong way.  Please note, you CANNOT disable the input field as an alternative to capturing the keypress. If you do this and save the form, any data in the disabled fields will be wiped out. There are probably a dozen ways to make a field read-only and if all you are using jQuery for is to make a field read-only, then you might want to question your use of adding the overhead (although it’s really not that much). Hey.. it’s another tool for your tool belt.

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• Gauging Maturity of your BPM Strategy - part 1 / 2

  - by Sanjeev Sharma

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} In this post I will discuss the essence of maturity assessment and the business imperative for doing the same in the context of BPM. Social psychology purports that an individual progresses from being a beginner to an expert in a given activity or task along four stages of self-awareness: Unconscious Incompetence where the individual does not understand or know how to do something and does not necessarily recognize the deficit and may even deny the usefulness of the skill. Conscious Incompetence where the individual recognizes the deficit, as well as the value of a new skill in addressing the deficit. Conscious Competence where the individual understands or knows how to do something but demonstrating the skill requires explicit concentration. Unconscious Competence where the individual has had so much practice with a skill that it has become "second nature" and serves as a basis of developing other complementary skills. We can extend the above thinking to an organization as a whole by measuring an organization’s level of competence in a specific area or capability, as an aggregate of the competence levels of individuals it is comprised of. After all organizations too like individuals, evolve through experience, develop “memory” and capabilities that are shaped through a constant cycle of learning, un-learning and re-learning. Hence the key to organizational success lies in developing these capabilities to enable execution of its strategy in-line with the external environment i.e. demand, competition, economy etc. However developing a capability merits establishing a base line in order to Assess the magnitude of improvement from past investments Identify gaps and short-comings Prioritize future investments in the right areas A maturity assessment is essentially an organizational self-awareness check that is aimed at depicting the “as-is” snapshot of an existing capability in-order to guide future investments to develop that capability in-line with business goals. This effectively is the essence of a maturity Organizational capabilities stem through its architecture, routines, culture and intellectual resources that are implicitly and explicitly embedded in its business processes. Given that business processes underpin realization of organizational capabilities, is what has prompted business transformation and process management efforts. Thus, the BPM capability of an organization needs to be measured on an on-going basis to ensure delivery of its planned benefits. In my next post I will describe Oracle’s BPM Maturity assessment methodology.

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