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• Survey: Your Plans for Adopting New Firefox Releases?

  - by Steven Chan (Oracle Development)

  Mozilla is committing to releasing new Firefox versions every six weeks.  Mozilla released Firefox 5 this week.  With this release, Mozilla states that Firefox 4 is End-of-Life and will not receive any additional security updates.  In a comment thread posted on to a Mike Kaply's blog article discussing these new Firefox policies, Asa Dotzler from Mozilla stated: ... Enterprise has never been (and I’ll argue, shouldn’t be) a focus of ours. Until we run out of people who don’t have sysadmins and enterprise deployment teams looking out for them, I can’t imagine why we’d focus at all on the kinds of environments you care so much about.  In a later comment, he added: ... A minute spent making a corporate user happy can better be spent making many regular users happy. I’d much rather Mozilla spending its limited resources looking out for the billions of users that don’t have enterprise support systems already taking care of them. Asa then confirmed that every new Firefox release will put the previous one into End-of-Life: As for John’s concern, “By the time I validate Firefox 5, what guarantee would I have that Firefox 5 won’t go EOL when Firefox 6 is released?” He has the opposite of guarantees that won’t happen. He has my promise that it will happen. Firefox 6 will be the EOL of Firefox 5. And Firefox 7 will be the EOL for Firefox 6.  He added: “You’re basically saying you don’t care about corporations.” Yes, I’m basically saying that I don’t care about making Firefox enterprise friendly. Kev Needham, Channel Manager at Mozilla later stated to PC Mag: The Web and Web browsers continue to evolve rapidly. Mozilla's focus is on providing users with the best Web experience possible, and Firefox needs to evolve at the pace the Web's users and developers expect. By releasing small, focused updates more often, we are able to deliver improved security and stability even as we introduce new features, which is better for our users, and for the Web.We recognize that this shift may not be compatible with a large organization's IT Policy and understand that it is challenging to organizations that have effort-intensive certification polices. However, our development process is geared toward delivering products that support the Web as it is today, while innovating and building future Web capabilities. Tying Firefox product development to an organizational process we do not control would make it difficult for us to continue to innovate for our users and the betterment of the Web.  Your feedback needed for E-Business Suite certifications  Mozilla's new support policy has significant implications for enterprise users of Firefox with Oracle E-Business Suite.  We are reviewing the implications for our certification and support policies for Firefox now.  It would be very helpful if you could let me know about your organisation's plans for Firefox in light of this new information.  Please feel free to drop me a private email, or post a comment here if that's appropriate. 

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• Is Innovation Dead?

  - by wulfers

  My question is has innovation died?  For large businesses that do not have a vibrant, and fearless leadership (see Apple under Steve jobs), I think is has.  If you look at the organizational charts for many of the large corporate megaliths you will see a plethora of middle managers who are so risk averse that innovation (any change involves risk) is choked off since there are no innovation champions in the middle layers.  And innovation driven top down can only happen when you have a visionary in the top ranks, and that is also very rare.So where is actual innovation happening, at the bottom layer, the people who live in the trenches…   The people who live for a challenge. So how can big business leverage this innovation layer?  Remove the middle management layer.   Provide an innovation champion who has an R&D budget and is tasked with working with the bottom layer of a company, the engineers, developers  and business analysts that live on the edge (Where the corporate tires meet the road). Here are two innovation failures I will tell you about, and both have been impacted by a company so risk averse it is starting to fail in its primary business ventures: This company initiated an innovation process several years ago.  The process was driven companywide with team managers being the central points of collection of innovative ideas.  These managers were given no budget to do anything with these ideas.  There was no process or incentive for these managers to drive it about their team.  This lasted close to a year and the innovation program slowly slipped into oblivion…. A second example:  This same company failed an attempt to market a consumer product in a line where there was already a major market leader.  This product was under development for several years and needed to provide some major device differentiation form the current market leader.  This same company had a large Lead Technologist community made up of real innovators in all areas of technology.  Did this same company leverage the skills and experience of this internal community,   NO!!! So to wrap this up, if large companies really want to survive, then they need to start acting like a small company.  Support those innovators and risk takers!  Reward them by implementing their innovative ideas.  Champion (from the top down) innovation (found at the bottom) in your companies.  Remember if you stand still you are really falling behind.Do it now!  Take a risk!

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• PeopleSoft New Design Solves Navigation Problem

  - by Applications User Experience

  Anna Budovsky, User Experience Principal Designer, Applications User Experience In PeopleSoft we strive to improve User Experience on all levels. Simplifying navigation and streamlining access to the most important pages is always an important goal. No one likes to waste time waiting for pages to load and watching a spinning glass going on and on. Those performance-affecting server trips, page-load waits and just-too-many clicks were complained about for a long time. Something had to be done. A few new designs came in PeopleSoft 9.2 helping users to access their everyday work areas easier and faster. For example, Dashboard and Work Center aggregate most accessed information sections on a single page; Related Information allows users to complete transaction-related-research without interrupting a transaction and Secure Search gets users to a specific page directly. Today we’ll talk about the Actions menu. Most PeopleSoft pages are shared between individual products and product lines. It means changing the content on a single page involves Oracle development and quality assurance time for making and testing the changes. In order to streamline the navigation and cut down on accessing PeopleSoft pages one-page-at-a-time, we introduced a new menu design. The new menu allows accessing shared pages without the Oracle development team making any local changes, and it works as an additional one-click-path to specific high-traffic actionable pages. Let’s look at how many steps it took to Change Salary for an employee in HCM 9.1 before: Figure 1. BEFORE: The 6 steps a user would take to Change Salary in PeopleSoft HCM 9.1 In PeopleSoft 9.1 it took 5 steps + page loading time + additional verification time for making sure a correct employee is selected from the table. In PeopleSoft 9.2 it only takes 2 steps. To complete Ad Hoc Change Salary action, the user can start from the HCM Manager's Dashboard, click the Action menu within a table, choose a menu option, and access a correct employee’s details page to take an action. Figure 2. AFTER: The 2 steps a user would take to Change Salary in PeopleSoft HCM 9.2 The new menu is placed on a row level which ensures the user accesses the correct employee’s details page. The Actions menu separates menu options into hierarchical sections which help to scan and access the correct option quickly. The new menu’s small size and its structure enabled users to access high-traffic pages from any page and from any part of the page. No more spinning hourglass, no more multiple pages upload. The flexible design fits anywhere on a page and provides a fast and reliable path to the correct destination within the product. Now users can: Access any target page no matter how far it is buried from the starting point; Reduce navigation and page-load time; Improve productivity and reduce errors. The new menu design is available and widely used in all PeopleSoft 9.2 product lines.

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• What to answer to a customer who asks which one of two equivalent technologies must be used?

  - by MainMa

  As a freelancer, I am often asked by my customers what they must choose between similar elements, neither of which being better than another. Examples: “Do I need my e-commerce website be in PHP or ASP.NET?” “Do I need to host this ordinary web service in Cloud or use an ordinary hosting service?” “Which one is better for my new website: MySQL or Oracle?” etc. There is maybe at most 1% of cases where the choice is relevant, and there is a real, objective reason to use one over another, based on the precise metrics and studies. In all other cases, it doesn't matter at all. It is totally, completely irrelevant, either because there are no implications¹, or because those implications are too small to be taken in account², or, finally, because it's impossible to predict those implications³. If you know one thing and not another one, the answer to those questions is easy: “You can either write the application in C# or Java, both being probably equivalent in your case. Note that I'm a C# developer, so if you choose Java, I would not be able to work on your project and you would need to find another freelancer.” When you know both technologies, you can't answer that. In this case, how to explain to the customer that the question he asks is subject to flamewar and has no real consequences on his project? In other words, how to explain that you've chosen to use one technology rather than an equivalent one for the reasons related to human resources, without giving the impression to be unprofessional or to not care about the project? ¹ Example: Is MySQL better (worse?), performance-wise, compared to Oracle, for a personal website which will be accessed by, oh, let's be optimistic, two people per day? ² Example: for a given project, I was asked to asset if Windows Azure hosting would be cheaper than the hosting of the same application on a well-known ASP.NET hosting provider. The cost revealed to be exactly the same. ³ Example: your customer have an idea of a future application (the idea itself being extremely vague). There is no business plan, no requirements, nothing at all. Just an idea. You are asked if Java is better than C# for this app. What do you answer?

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• Enterprise with eyes on NoSQL

  - by thegreeneman

  Since joining Oracle a few months back, I have had the fortune of being able to interact with a number of large enterprise organizations and discuss their current state of adoption for NoSQL database technology.   It is worth noting that a large percentage of these organizations do have some NoSQL use and have been steadily increasing their understanding of its applicability for certain data management workloads.   Thru those discussions I’ve learned that it seems one of the biggest issues confronting enterprise adoption of NoSQL databases is the lack of standards for access, administration and monitoring.    This was not so much of an issue with the early adopters of NoSQL technology because they employed a highly DevOps centric approach to application deployment leaving a select few highly qualified developers with the task of managing the production of the system that they designed and implemented. However, as NoSQL technology moves out of the startup and into the hands of larger corporate entities, developers with a broad skill set that are capable of both development and I.T. type production management are in short supply and quickly get moved on to do new projects, often moving to different roles within the company.  This difference in the way smaller more agile startups operate as compared to more established companies is revealing a gap in the NoSQL technology segment that needs to get addressed.    This is one of places that a company such as Oracle has a leg up in the NoSQL Database front.  A combination of having gone thru a past database maturization process,  combined with a vast set of corporate relationships that have grown hand in hand to solve these types of issues, Oracle is in a great place to lead the way in closing the requirements gap for NoSQL technology.  Oracle's understanding of the needs specific to mature organizations have already made their way into the Oracle’s NoSQL Database offering with features such as:  One click cluster deployment with visual topology planning,  standards based monitoring protocols such as SNMP, support for data access for reporting via standard SQL  and integration with emerging standards for data access such as MapReduce.  Given the exciting developments we’re driving in the Oracle NoSQL Database group, I will have a lot more to say about this topic as we move into the second half of the year.

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• How should I land my next consulting gig? [closed]

  - by MrOodles

  For the last couple of years, I've been working on speculative projects, expanding my skillset with side work, and paying the bills while having a blast consulting for startups. However, for a number of personal reasons, I need to spend the next 6-9 months maximizing my cash income. I want to put this into effect starting in early August. So that means I have one month to put the necessary client list/portfolio/resume together to start making this happen. As a programmer, I am very proficient in building Django web apps. I can write the necessary SQL, python, javascript, and css to build every part of a Django app, and then do the system administration necessary to deploy on AWS using EC2. I can also rig up a CDN to work seemlessly with the app using S3 and Cloudfront. I have built GIS applications using GeoDjango and PostGIS, and I have constructed social video apps by implementing Encoding.com as a service to prepare raw video files for consumption on the web. I am also moderately proficient in programming PHP, Java, and C#. I have built web apps in PHP, and desktop apps in Java and C#. I have dabbled with Android applications and iPhone apps, but nothing I would show off. I have experience doing SEO, social media marketing, and content marketing. Many of my clients have needed their apps promoted after they were built, and I was always happy to oblige when I could. I have also worked with biometrics technology including fingerprints for government contractors. This was as much a business analyst role as it was a programming gig, as I had to help answer RFPs, make checklists, and work around reems and reems of regulations to build applications that met very large bureaucratic requirements. I only have two real requirements for my next gig(s): 1) Work remotely. I live in North East Ohio, and I don't plan on leaving, but I wouldn't mind traveling one or two weeks out of every month to service clients who need on-site help. 2) $60.00hr-$∞ USD contracting rate. So what should I do for the next 30 days to achieve this? Should I target some large company and learn the requisite buzzwords to impress them? Should I learn some new language or technology? Polish some skill that I already have? Should I build something using my current skillset, or with some new technology? Should I put a website for my consultancy together to market myself? Should I do that using latest technology x, y, and z? Or should I just slap something up on Tumblr? I'm willing to do anything (moral) over the next 4 weeks to put myself into a position to maximize my income, and I'm open to all and every idea Programmers users may have. Let me hear them.

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• How to Send the Contents of the Clipboard to a Text File via the Send to Menu

  - by Jason Faulkner

  We have previously covered how to send the contents of a text file to the Windows Clipboard with a simple Send To shortcut, but what if you want to do the opposite? That is: send the contents of the clipboard to a text file with a simple shortcut. No problem. Here’s how. Copy the ClipOut Utility While Windows offers the command line tool ‘clip’ as a way to direct console output to the clipboard, it does not have a tool to direct the clipboard contents to the console. To do this, we are going to use a small utility named ClipOut (download link at the bottom). Simply download and extract this file to a location in your Windows PATH variable (if you don’t know what this means, just extract the EXE to your C:\Windows folder) and you are ready to go. Add the Send To Shortcut Open your Send To folder location by going to Run > shell:sendto Create a new shortcut with the command: CMD /C ClipOut > Note the above command will overwrite the contents of the selected file. If you would like to append to the contents of the selected file, use this command instead: CMD /C ClipOut >> Of course, you could make shortcuts for both. Give a descriptive name to the shortcut. You’re finished. Using this shortcut will now send the text contents copied to your Windows Clipboard to the selected file. It is important to note that the ClipOut tool only supports outputting text. If you had binary data copied to your clipboard, then the output would be empty. Changing the Icon By default, the icon for the shortcut will appear as a command prompt, but you can easily change this by editing the properties of the shortcut and clicking the Change Icon button. We used an icon located in “%SystemRoot%\System32\shell32.dll”, but any icon of your liking will do. As an additional tweak, you can set the properties of the shortcut to run minimized. This will prevent the command window from “blinking” when the send to command is run (instead it will blink in your taskbar, which is hardly noticeable). Links Download ClipOut Utility     

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• Combobox binding with different types

  - by George Evjen

  Binding to comboboxes in Silverlight has been an adventure the past couple of days. In our framework at ArchitectNow we use LookupGroups and LookupValues. In our database we would have a LookupGroup of NBA Teams for example. The group would be called NBATeams, we get the LookupGroupID and then get the values from the LookupValues table. So we would end up with a list of all 30+ teams. Our lookup values entity has a display text(string), value(string), IsActive and some other fields. With our applications we load all this information into the system when the user is logging in or right after they login. So in cache we have a list of groups and values that we can get at whenever we want to. We get this information in our framework simply by creating an observable collection of type LookupValue. To get a list of these values into our property all we have to do is. var NBATeams = AppContext.Current.LookupSerivce.GetLookupValues(“NBATeams”); Our combobox then is bound like this. (We use telerik components in most if not all our projects) <telerik:RadComboBox ItemsSource="{Binding NBATeams}”></telerik:RadComboBox> This should give you a list in your combobox. We also set up another property in our ViewModel that is a just single object of NBATeams  - “SelectedNBATeam” Our selectedItem in our combobox would look like, we would set this to a two way binding since we are sending data back. SelectedItem={Binding SelectedNBATeam, mode=TwoWay}” This is all pretty straight forward and we use this pattern throughout all our applications. What do you do though when you have a combobox in a ItemsControl or ListBox? Here we have a list of NBA Teams that are a string that are being brought back from the database. We cant have the selected item be our LookupValue because the data is a string and its being bound in an ItemsControl. In the example above we would just have the combobox in a form. Here though we have it in a ItemsControl, where there is no selected item from the initial ItemsSource. In order to get the selected item to be displayed in the combobox you have to convert the LookupValue to a string. Then instead of using SelectedItem in the combobox use SelectedValue. To convert the LookupValue we do this. Create an observable collection of strings public ObservableCollection<string> NBATeams { get; set;} Then convert your lookups to strings var NBATeams = new ObservableCollection<string>(AppContext.Current.LookupService.GetLookupValues(“NBATeams”).Select(x => x.DisplayText)); This will give us a list of strings and our selected value should be bound to the NBATeams property in our ItemsSource in our ItemsControl. SelectedValue={Binding NBATeam, mode=TwoWay}”

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• Managing accounts on a private website for a real-life community

  - by Smudge

  I'm looking at setting-up a walled-in website for a real-life community of people, and I was wondering if anyone has any experience with managing member accounts for this kind of thing. Some conditions that must be met: This community has a set list of real-life members, each of whom would be eligible for one account on the website. We don't expect or require that they all sign-up. It is purely opt-in, but we anticipate that many of them would be interested in the services we are setting up. Some of the community members emails are known, but some of them have fallen off the grid over the years, so ideally there would be a way for them to get back in touch with us through the public-facing side of the site. (And we'd want to manually verify the identity of anyone who does so). Their names are known, and for similar projects in the past we have assigned usernames derived from their real-life names. This time, however, we are open to other approaches, such as letting them specify their own username or getting rid of usernames entirely. The specific web technology we will use (e.g. Drupal, Joomla, etc) is not really our concern right now -- I am more interested in how this can be approached in the abstract. Our database already includes the full member roster, so we can email many of them generated links to a page where they can create an account. (And internally we can require that these accounts be paired with a known member). Should we have them specify their own usernames, or are we fine letting them use their registered email address to log-in? Are there any paradigms for walled-in community portals that help address security issues if, for example, one of their email accounts is compromised? We don't anticipate attempted break-ins being much of a threat, because nothing about this community is high-profile, but we do want to address security concerns. In addition, we want to make the sign-up process as painless for the members as possible, especially given the fact that we can't just make sign-ups open to anyone. I'm interested to hear your thoughts and suggestions! Thanks!

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• Oracle Could Lead In Cloud Business Apps Within Year

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  Below is the reprint from an article, writen by By Pete Barlas, Investor's Business Daily, published on Investorscom: Oracle (ORCL) is all but destined to become the largest seller of cloud business-software applications, analysts say, and perhaps within a year. What that means in the long run is much debated, though, as analysts aren't sure whether pricing competition might cut into profit or what other issues might develop in the fast-emerging cloud software field. But the database leader, which is either No. 1 or 2 to SAP (SAP) in business apps overall, simply has the size and scope to overtake current cloud business-app leader, Salesforce.com (CRM), analysts say. Oracle rolled out its first full suite of cloud applications on June 6. Cloud computing lets companies store data and apps on the Internet "cloud" and access it quickly and easily. The applications run the gamut of customer relationship management software to social networking sites for employees, partners and customers. For longtime software giants like Oracle, the cloud is a big switch. They get the great bulk of revenue from companies and other enterprises buying or licensing software that the customers keep on their own computer systems. Vendors also get annual maintenance fees. Analysts estimate Oracle is taking in a mere $1 billion or so a year from cloud-based software sales and services now. But while that's just a sliver of the company's $37 billion in sales last year, it's already about a third of the total sales for Salesforce, which is expected to end this year with some $3 billion in revenue. Operates In 145 Countries Oracle operates in more than 145 countries vs. about 70 for Salesforce. And Oracle has far more apps than Salesforce. Revenue doesn't equate to profit, but it's inevitable that huge Oracle will become the largest seller of cloud applications, says Trip Chowdhry, an analyst for Global Equities Research. "What Oracle has is global presence," he said. "They have two things driving the revenue: breadth of the offering and breadth of the distribution. You put those applications in those sales reps' hands and you get deployments not in just one country but several countries." At the June 6 event, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison emphasized that his company could and would beat Salesforce.com in head-to-head battles for customers. Oracle makes software to help companies manage such tasks as customer relationships, recruiting, supply chains, projects, finances and more. That range gives it an edge over all rivals, says Michael Fauscette, an analyst for research firm IDC.

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• Which programming language to get into?

  - by user602479

  I'm ending my third term in a few weeks so I have some spare time coming up. I'd like to spend it seriously digging into programming. My problem: I'm not sure which language to begin with. Just to be clear, I don't want to start a language-y-compared-to-language-z discussion. There are a some other issues that play a major role. In my 5th term I'm going to be participating in a major practical course which will include either Java or C programming. It will take a lot of time and energy, as I found out while talking to a few students who passed the final exams (only 15% pass on their first try). Which practical course I will take is randomly decided. My skills so far are the absolute basics of Java and C programming. I know the different data types and how to handle them, objects, pointers, thread programming, etc. All of that is on a very low level, though. My question now is, what language should I start seriously practicing? Java: I did my first GUIs with this language. I'm familiar with Eclipse but I need a project to work on (which I don't have) to really keep me pushing. Besides that, I don't think it would help me if I have to do C in a year. C: As with Java, I can't think of a personal project to keep me working and keep me interested in programming. If I get assigned to Java in a year, this wouldn't give me any advantages either, would it? (No objects, etc.) Objective-C: I recently came up with this idea. I have a Mac; I'm not really familiar with Xcode but I have one or two personal projects I'd like to work on. Further, I would be working with objects (as in Java) and C language constructs which would both be great for this practical course in a year. What do you think I should begin with? Should I just stick to Java and hope for the best, force myself through C or start (nearly) completely from the beginning with Objective C? Maybe you folks could give me some good advice that would stop me from switching from one language to the next?

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• Where does a "Technical Programmer" fit in, and what does the title mean? [closed]

  - by Mike E

  Was: "What is a 'Technical Programmer'"? I've noticed in job posting boards a few postings, all from European companies in the games industry, for a "Technical Programmer". The job description was similar, having to do with tools development, 3d graphics programming, etc. It seems to be somewhere between a Technical Artist who's more technical than artist or who can code, and a Technical Director but perhaps without the seniority/experience. Information elsewhere on the position is sparse. The title seems redundant and I haven't seen any American companies post jobs by that name, exactly. One example is this job posting on gamedev.net which isn't exactly thorough. In case the link dies: Subject: Technical Programmer Frictional Games, the creators of Amnesia: The Dark Descent and the Penumbra series, are looking for a talented programmer to join the company! You will be working for a small team with a big focus on finding new and innovating solutions. We want you who are not afraid to explore uncharted territory and constantly learn new things. Self-discipline and independence are also important traits as all work will be done from home. Some the things you will work with include: 3D math, rendering, shaders and everything else related. Console development (most likely Xbox 360). Hardware implementations (support for motion controls, etc). All coding is in C++, so great skills in that is imperative. Revised Summarised Question: So, where does a programmer of this nature fit in to software development team? If I had these on my team, what tasks am I expecting them to complete? Can I ask one to build a new level editor, or optimize the rendering engine? It doesn't seem to be a "tools programmer" which focuses on producing artist tools, often in high-level languages like C#, Python, or Java. Nor does it seem to be working directly on the engine, nor a graphics programmer, as such. Yet, a strong C++ requirement, which was mirrored in other postings besides this one I quoted. Edited To Add As far as it being a low-level programmer, I had considered that but lacking from the posting was a requirement of Assembly. Instead, they tend to require familiarity with higher-level hardware APIs such as DirectX, or DirectInput. I wasn't fully clear in my original post. I think, however, that Mathew Foscarini has it right in his answer, so barring someone who definitely works with or as a "Technical Programmer" stepping in to provide a clearer explanation, I'll go with that. A generalist, which also fits the description of a more-technical-than-artist TA.

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• Career advice: stay with PHP or start a new career in something else ( .Net?)

  - by Christian P

  I'm planning on moving to NY in 6-12 months tops, so I'm forced to find a new job. When I'm planing to start my life in another city it's also probably a good time to think about career changes. I've found a lot of different opinions about PHP vs .Net vs Java and this is not topic here. I don't want to start a new fight about which language is better. Knowing programming language is not the most important thing for being a software developer. To be a really good developer you need to know OOP, design patterns, testing... and language is just a tool to make things happen. So back to my question. I have mixed experience in IT - 1 year as an IT support guy (Windows administration and support), around 2 years of experience in embedded programming (VB.Net 2005) and for the last 2 years I'm working with PHP/MySQL. I have worked with Magento web shop, assisted in some projects in Symfony, modified few Drupal sites. My main concerns are following: Do I continue to improve my skills in PHP e.g. to start learning some major PHP framework like Zend, Symfony maybe get some PHP certification. Or do I start learning .NET or Java. I'm more familiar to .NET so I'll probably choose it if choice falls between .NET and Java ( or you could convince me to choose Java :). Career-wise, I don't know what is the best choice. Learning new framework and language is more time consuming then improving my existing skills in PHP. But with .NET you have a lot of possibilities (Windows 7 Phone development, Silverlight, WPF) and possibly bigger chances to find better jobs. PHP jobs are less payed then .NET, at least, according to my researches (correct me if I'm wrong). But if I start now with .NET I'm just a beginner and my salary will be low. I need at least 2+ years of experience in some language to even try to find some job that is paying higher than $50-60k in NY. My main goal in next 2-3 years is to try to find a job in a $60-80k category. Don't get me wrong, I'm not just chasing money, but money is an important factor when you're trying to start a family. I'm 27 years old and I feel that there isn't a lot of room for wrong decisions regarding my career, so any advice will be very welcome. Update Thank you all for spending time to help me with my problem. All of the answers and comments have been very helpful. I have decided to stick with PHP but also to learn C# and Silverlight 4. We'll see where the life will take me.

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• WebLogic Silent Install 11.1.1.4 (WLS 10.3.4)

  - by john.graves(at)oracle.com

  This is just a quick note to remind myself of how incredibly easy it is to install the base products without the aid of a mouse! Note to Windoze users: Why?!?!  I’m only showing Linux examples in this blog so I encourage you to just say NO to win-no-z  install.sh !/bin/bash ./wls1034_oepe111161_linux32.bin -mode=silent -silent_xml=./silent.xml silent.xml <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <bea-installer> <input-fields> <data-value name="BEAHOME" value="/opt/app/wls10.3.4" /> <data-value name="WLS_INSTALL_DIR" value="/opt/app/wls10.3.4/wlserver_10.3" /> </input-fields> </bea-installer> .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Note about Oracle_Home: Since all products are moving to a common WLS base, I simply use the WLS version as my Oracle Home.  In this case wls10.3.4.  Also, I keep my user_projects outside my Oracle_Home directory to keep things clean.  I typically use /opt/app/user_projects or a variation of that.

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• Best practice for organizing/storing character/monster data in an RPG?

  - by eclecto

  Synopsis: Attempting to build a cross-platform RPG app in Adobe Flash Builder and am trying to figure out the best class hierarchy and the best way to store the static data used to build each of the individual "hero" and "monster" types. My programming experience, particularly in AS3, is embarrassingly small. My ultra-alpha method is to include a "_class" object in the constructor for each instance. The _class, in turn, is a static Object pulled from a class created specifically for that purpose, so things look something like this: // Character.as package { public class Character extends Sprite { public var _strength:int; // etc. public function Character(_class:Object) { _strength = _class._strength; // etc. } } } // MonsterClasses.as package { public final class MonsterClasses extends Object { public static const Monster1:Object={ _strength:50, // etc. } // etc. } } // Some other class in which characters/monsters are created. // Create a new instance of Character var myMonster = new Character(MonsterClasses.Monster1); Another option I've toyed with is the idea of making each character class/monster type its own subclass of Character, but I'm not sure if it would be efficient or even make sense considering that these classes would only be used to store variables and would add no new methods. On the other hand, it would make creating instances as simple as var myMonster = new Monster1; and potentially cut down on the overhead of having to read a class containing the data for, at a conservative preliminary estimate, over 150 monsters just to fish out the one monster I want (assuming, and I really have no idea, that such a thing might cause any kind of slowdown in execution). But long story short, I want a system that's both efficient at compile time and easy to work with during coding. Should I stick with what I've got or try a different method? As a subquestion, I'm also assuming here that the best way to store data that will be bundled with the final game and not read externally is simply to declare everything in AS3. Seems to me that if I used, say, XML or JSON I'd have to use the associated AS3 classes and methods to pull in the data, parse it, and convert it to AS3 object(s) anyway, so it would be inefficient. Right?

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• Has test driven development (TDD) actually benefited a real world project?

  - by James

  I am not new to coding. I have been coding (seriously) for over 15 years now. I have always had some testing for my code. However, over the last few months I have been learning test driven design/development (TDD) using Ruby on Rails. So far, I'm not seeing the benefit. I see some benefit to writing tests for some things, but very few. And while I like the idea of writing the test first, I find I spend substantially more time trying to debug my tests to get them to say what I really mean than I do debugging actual code. This is probably because the test code is often substantially more complicated than the code it tests. I hope this is just inexperience with the available tools (RSpec in this case). I must say though, at this point, the level of frustration mixed with the disappointing lack of performance is beyond unacceptable. So far, the only value I'm seeing from TDD is a growing library of RSpec files that serve as templates for other projects/files. Which is not much more useful, maybe less useful, than the actual project code files. In reading the available literature, I notice that TDD seems to be a massive time sink up front, but pays off in the end. I'm just wondering, are there any real world examples? Does this massive frustration ever pay off in the real world? I really hope I did not miss this question somewhere else on here. I searched, but all the questions/answers are several years old at this point. It was a rare occasion when I found a developer who would say anything bad about TDD, which is why I have spent as much time on this as I have. However, I noticed that nobody seems to point to specific real-world examples. I did read one answer that said the guy debugging the code in 2011 would thank you for have a complete unit testing suite (I think that comment was made in 2008). So, I'm just wondering, after all these years, do we finally have any examples showing the payoff is real? Has anybody actually inherited or gone back to code that was designed/developed with TDD and has a complete set of unit tests and actually felt a payoff? Or did you find that you were spending so much time trying to figure out what the test was testing (and why it was important) that you just tossed out the whole mess and dug into the code?

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• eSTEP Newsletter December 2012

  - by uwes

  Dear Partners,We would like to inform you that the December issue of our Newsletter is now available.The issue contains informations to the following topics: Notes from Corporate: It's Earth day - Every Day, Oracle SPARC Newsletter, Pre-Built Developer VMs (for Oracle VM VirtualBox), Oracle Database Appliance Now Certified by SAP, Database High Availability, Cultivating Business-Led Innovation Technical Corner: Geek Fest! Talking About the Design of the T4 and T5 SPARC Chips, Blog: Is This Your Idea of Disaster Recovery?; Oracle® Practitioner Guide - A Pragmatic Approach to Cloud Adoption; Oracle Practitioner Guide: A pragmatic Approach to Cloud Adoption; Darren Moffat Explains the new ZFS Encryption Features in Solaris 11.1; Command Summary: Basic Operations with the Image Packaging System; SPARC T4 Server Delivers Outstanding Performance on Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g; SPARC T4-4 Servers Set First World Record on PeopleSoft HCM 9.1 Benchmark; Sun ZFS Appliance Monitor Refresh: Core Factor Table; Remanufactured Systems Program for Sun Systems from Oracle; Reminder: Oracle Premier Support for Systems; Reminder: Oracle Platinum Services Learning & Events: eSTEP Events Schedule; Recently Delivered Techcasts; Webinar: Maximum Availibility with Oracle GoldenGate References: LUKOIL Overseas Holding Optimizes Oil Field Development Projects with Integrated Project Management; United Networks Increases Accounting Flexibility and Boosts System Performance with ERP Applications Upgrade; Ziggo Rapidly Creates Applications That Accelerate Communications-Service Orders l How to ...: The Role of Oracle Solaris Zones and Oracle Linux Containers in a Virtualization Strategy; How to Update to Oracle Solaris 11.1; Using svcbundle to Create Manifests and Profiles in Oracle Solaris 11.1; How to Migrate Your Data to Oracle Solaris 11 Using Shadow Migration; How to Script Oracle Solaris 11.1 Zones for Easy Cloning; How to Script Oracle Solaris 11 Zones Creation for a Network-in-a-Box Configuration; How to Know Whether T4 Crypto Accelerators Are in Use; Fault Handling and Prevention – Part 1; Transforming and Consolidating Web Data with Oracle Database; Looking Under the Hood at Networking in Oracle VM Server for x86; Best Way to Migrate Data from Legacy File System to ZFS in Oracle Solaris 11; Special Year End Article: The Top 10 Strategic CIO Issues For 2013 You find the Newsletter on our portal under eSTEP News ---> Latest Newsletter. You will need to provide your email address and the pin below to get access. Link to the portal is shown below.URL: http://launch.oracle.com/PIN: eSTEP_2011Previous published Newsletters can be found under the Archived Newsletters section and more useful information under the Events, Download and Links tab. Feel free to explore and any feedback is appreciated to help us improve the service and information we deliver.Thanks and best regards,Partner HW Enablement EMEA

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• Embracing Imperfection

  - by Johnm

  The pursuit of perfection is a road on which we often find ourselves traveling. It is an unpaved road filed with pot-holes and ruts that often destroy our stride. The shoulders of this road are lined with the bones and rotting carcasses of well planned projects, solutions and dreams of others who have dared the journey. Often the choice to engage in this travel is a compulsive one. We can't help but to pack our bags and make the trip. We justify it by equating it to the delivery of a quality product or service. We use our past travels as validation of our worthiness and value. Our shared experience, as tortured pilgrims of perfection, reveals that each odyssey that bewitched us resulted in a stark reminder of the very weaknesses and fears that we were attempting to mollify. The voice of the critic that berated us for the lack of craftsmanship was our own. Although, at the end of the journey our own critical voice was joined by the gnashing of teeth of those who could not reap the fruit of your labor due to its lack of timely delivery. There is another road in which to travel. It is the pursuit of embracing imperfection. The cost of traveling this route is your contribution to its eternal construction. Each segment is designed uniquely. At times it has the appearance of a patchwork quilt; while other times it is well organized and highly measured. In all cases, its construction has continually advanced and been utilized as each segment was delivered by its architect. Those who choose to select this spindle of these crossroads crack open the shells of their fears to reveal the vapor that is within. They construct their houses upon these shells. Through their hunger for mastery they wring every drop of nectar from failure and discard its husks to the ditches of this road. Through their efforts the thoroughfare begins to develop a personality of its own, a beautifully human one, rich with the strengths and weaknesses of all of its contributors. Like many of us, the pursuit of perfection has not served me well. In fact, I would say that it has been more damaging than it has been helpful. While the perfectionist in me occasionally makes its presence known, I consider myself a "recovering perfectionist". It is evident to me that there is immense beauty found in imperfection. I choose to embrace it. It is grounding. It is constructive. It is honest.

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• 5 Step Procedure for Android Deployment with NetBeans IDE

  - by Geertjan

  I'm finding that it's so simple to deploy apps to Android that I'm not needing to use the Android emulator at all, haven't been able to figure out how it works anyway (big blinky screen pops up that I don't know what to do with). I just simply deploy the app straight to Android, try it out there, and then uninstall it, if needed. The whole process (only step 4 and 5 below need to be done for each deployment iteration, after you've done steps 1, 2, and 3 once to set up the deployment environment), takes a few seconds. Here's what I do: On Android, go to Settings | Applications. Check "Unknown sources". In "Development", check "USB debugging". Connect Android to your computer via a USB cable. Start up NetBeans IDE, with NBAndroid installed, as described yesterday. and create your "Hello World" app. Right-click the project in the IDE and choose "Export Signed Android Package". Create a new keystore, or choose an existing one, via the wizard that appears. At the end of the wizard (would be nice if NBAndroid would let you set up a keystore once and then reuse it for all your projects, without needing to work through the whole wizard step by step each time), you'll have a new release APK file (Android deployment archive) in the project's 'bin' folder, which you can see in the Files window. Go to the command line (would be nice if NBAndroid were to support adb, would mean I wouldn't need the command line at all), browse to the location of the APK file above. Type "adb install helloworld-release.apk" or whatever the APK file is called. You should see a "Success" message in the command line. Now the application is installed. On your Android, go to "Applications", and there you'll see your brand new app. Then try it out there and delete it if you're not happy with it. After you've made a change in your app, simply repeat step 4 and 5, i.e., create a new APK and install it via adb. Step 4 and 5 take a couple of seconds. And, given that it's all so simple, I don't see the value of the Android emulator, at all.

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• Understanding the levels of computing

  - by RParadox

  Sorry, for my confused question. I'm looking for some pointers. Up to now I have been working mostly with Java and Python on the application layer and I have only a vague understanding of operating systems and hardware. I want to understand much more about the lower levels of computing, but it gets really overwhelming somehow. At university I took a class about microprogramming, i.e. how processors get hard-wired to implement the ASM codes. Up to now I always thought I wouldn't get more done if learned more about the "low level". One question I have is: how is it even possible that hardware gets hidden almost completely from the developer? Is it accurate to say that the operating system is a software layer for the hardware? One small example: in programming I have never come across the need to understand what L2 or L3 Cache is. For the typical business application environment one almost never needs to understand assembler and the lower levels of computing, because nowadays there is a technology stack for almost anything. I guess the whole point of these lower levels is to provide an interface to higher levels. On the other hand I wonder how much influence the lower levels can have, for example this whole graphics computing thing. So, on the other hand, there is this theoretical computer science branch, which works on abstract computing models. However, I also rarely encountered situations, where I found it helpful thinking in the categories of complexity models, proof verification, etc. I sort of know, that there is a complexity class called NP, and that they are kind of impossible to solve for a big number of N. What I'm missing is a reference for a framework to think about these things. It seems to me, that there all kinds of different camps, who rarely interact. The last few weeks I have been reading about security issues. Here somehow, much of the different layers come together. Attacks and exploits almost always occur on the lower level, so in this case it is necessary to learn about the details of the OSI layers, the inner workings of an OS, etc.

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• Specifying and applying broad changes to a program

  - by Victor Nicollet

  How do you handle incomplete feature requests, when the ones asking for the feature cannot possibly write a complete request? Consider an imaginary situation. You are a tech lead working on a piece of software that revolves around managing profiles (maybe they're contacts in a CRM-type application, or employees in an HR application), with many operations being directly or indirectly performed on those profiles — edit fields, add comments, attach documents, send e-mail... The higher-ups decide that a lock functionality should be added whereby a profile can be locked to prevent anyone else from doing any operations on it until it's unlocked — this feature would be used by security agents to prevent anyone from touching a profile pending a security audit. Obviously, such a feature interacts with many other existing features related to profiles. For example: Can one add a comment to a locked profile? Can one see e-mails that were sent by the system to the owner of a locked profile? Can one see who recently edited a locked profile? If an e-mail was in the process of being sent when the lock happened, is the e-mail sending canceled, delayed or performed as if nothing happened? If I just changed a profile and click the "cancel" link on the confirmation, does the lock prevent the cancel or does it still go through? In all of these cases, how do I tell the user that a lock is in place? Depending on the software, there could be hundreds of such interactions, and each interaction requires a decision — is the lock going to apply and if it does, how will it be displayed to the user? And the higher-ups asking for the feature probably only see a small fraction of these, so you will probably have a lot of questions coming up while you are working on the feature. How would you and your team handle this? Would you expect the higher-ups to come up with a complete description of all cases where the lock should apply (and how), and treat all other cases as if the lock did not exist? Would you try to determine all potential interactions based on existing specifications and code, list them and ask the higher-ups to make a decision on all those where the decision is not obvious? Would you just start working and ask questions as they come up? Would you try to change their minds and settle on a more easily described feature with similar effects? The information about existing features is, as I understand it, in the code — how do you bridge the gap between the decision-makers and that information they cannot access?

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• Are these non-standard applications of rendering practical in games?

  - by maul

  I've recently got into 3D and I came up with a few different "tricky" rendering techniques. Unfortunately I don't have the time to work on this myself, but I'd like to know if these are known methods and if they can be used in practice. Hybrid rendering Now I know that ray-tracing is still not fast enough for real-time rendering, at least on home computers. I also know that hybrid rendering (a combination of rasterization and ray-tracing) is a well known theory. However I had the following idea: one could separate a scene into "important" and "not important" objects. First you render the "not important" objects using traditional rasterization. In this pass you also render the "important" objects using a special shader that simply marks these parts on the image using a special color, or some stencil/depth buffer trickery. Then in the second pass you read back the results of the first pass and start ray tracing, but only from the pixels that were marked by the "important" object's shader. This would allow you to only ray-trace exactly what you need to. Could this be fast enough for real-time effects? Rendered physics I'm specifically talking about bullet physics - intersection of a very small object (point/bullet) that travels across a straight line with other, relatively slow-moving, fairly constant objects. More specifically: hit detection. My idea is that you could render the scene from the point of view of the gun (or the bullet). Every object in the scene would draw a different color. You only need to render a 1x1 pixel window - the center of the screen (again, from the gun's point of view). Then you simply check that central pixel and the color tells you what you hit. This is pixel-perfect hit detection based on the graphical representation of objects, which is not common in games. Afaik traditional OpenGL "picking" is a similar method. This could be extended in a few ways: For larger (non-bullet) objects you render a larger portion of the screen. If you put a special-colored plane in the middle of the scene (exactly where the bullet will be after the current frame) you get a method that works as the traditional slow-moving iterative physics test as well. You could simulate objects that the bullet can pass through (with decreased velocity) using alpha blending or some similar trick. So are these techniques in use anywhere, and/or are they practical at all?

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• The Minimalist's Approach to Content Governance

  - by Kellsey Ruppel

  This week on the blog, we want to focus on the content lifecylce and how important it is to have the tools in place to be able to properly manage all te phases of the content lifecylce. John Brunswick has some great advice when it comes to this topic, so expect to hear a lot from him this week! Originally posted by John Brunswick. Let's be honest - content governance is far from an exciting topic. BUT the potential of a very small intranet team creating and maintaining a platform that provides an organization with relevant, high value information, helping workers to get their jobs done with greater accuracy and in less time is exciting. It is easy to quickly start producing content, but the challenge is ensuring that the environment is easy to navigate and use on the third week and during the third year.   What can be done to bridge this gap? Over the next few blog entries let's take a pragmatic, minimalistic view of a process that can help any team manage a wealth of unstructured information. Based on an earlier article that I wrote around Portal Governance, I am going to focus on using technology as much as possible to support the governance of content with minimal involvement from users. The only certainty about content production is that business users are not fans of maintaining content. Maintenance is overhead and is a long-term investment thats value will possibly not be realized under the current content creator's watch. To add context to how we will use technical tools in this process, each post will highlight one section of the content lifecycle process as outlined below Content Lifecycle Stages 1. Request - Understand the education, purpose, resource and success criteria for content 2. Create - Determine access and workflow for content 3. Manage - Understand ownership and review cycles 4. Retire - Act on thresholds established during the request stage Within each state we will also elaborate as to 1. Why - why would we entertain doing this? 2. How - the steps that are needed to make it happen 3. Impact - what is the net benefit or loss based on the process Over the course of this week, we will dive deep into the stages and the minimal amount of time, effort and process within each to make some meaningful gains in the improvement of user experience and productivity in their search for information. It might be a stretch to say that we can make content governance exciting, but hopefully it can end up being painless and paying dividends. And if you'd like to hear first hand from a customer that is managing their content lifecycle with Oracle WebCenter, be sure to join us on Wednesday for this webcast "ResCare Solves Content Lifecycle Challenges with Oracle WebCenter"!

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• How is a switch statement better than a series of if statements? [closed]

  - by user1276078

  Possible Duplicate: Should I use switch statements or long if…else chains? I'm working on a small program that will conduct an Insertion Sort. A number will be inputted through the keyboard and stored in a variable I called "num." I've decided to use a switch statement in order to obtain the number inputted. switch( e.getKeyCode() ) { case KeyEvent.VK_0: num = 0; break; case KeyEvent.VK_1: num = 1; break; case KeyEvent.VK_2: num = 2; break; case KeyEvent.VK_3: num = 3; break; case KeyEvent.VK_4: num = 4; break; case KeyEvent.VK_5: num = 5; break; case KeyEvent.VK_6: num = 6; break; case KeyEvent.VK_7: num = 7; break; case KeyEvent.VK_8: num = 8; break; case KeyEvent.VK_9: num = 9; break; } I realized one other course of action could have been to use a set of if statements. if( e.getKeyCode() == KeyEvent.VK_0 ) num = 0; else if( e.getKeyCode() == KeyEvent.VK_1 ) num = 1; etc. for every number up until 9. I then wondered what the essential difference is between a switch statement and a series of if statements. I know it saves space and time to write, but it's not that much. So, my question is, aside from the space, does a switch statement differ from a series of if statments in any way? Is it faster, less error-prone, etc.? This question really doesn't affect my code that much. I was just wondering. Also, this question pertains to the JAVA language, not any other programming language.

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• Dark Sun Dispatch 001.5 (a review of City Under The Sand)

  - by Chris Williams

  City Under The Sand - a review I'm moderately familiar with the Dark Sun setting. I've read the other Dark Sun novels, ages ago and I recently started running a D&D 4.0 campaign in the Dark Sun world, so I picked up this book to help re-familiarize myself with the setting. Overall, it did accomplish that, in a limited way. The book takes place in Nibenay and a neighboring expanse of desert that includes a formerly buried city, a small town and a bandit outpost. The book does a more interesting job of describing Nibenese politics and the court of the ruling Sorcerer King, his templars and the expected jockeying for position that occurs between the Templar Wives. There is a fair amount of combat, which was interesting and fairly well detailed. The ensemble cast is introduced and eventually brought together over the first few chapters. Not a lot of backstory on most of the characters, but you get a feel for them fairly quickly. The storyline was somewhat predictable after the first third of the book. Some of the reviews on Amazon complain about the 2-dimensional characterizations, and yes there were some... but it's easy to ignore because there is a lot going on in the book... several interwoven plotlines that all eventually converge. Where the book falls short... First, it appears to have been edited by a 4th grader who knows how to use spellcheck but lacks the attention to detail to notice the frequent occurence of incorrect words that often don't make sense or change the context of the entire sentence. It happened just enough to be distracting, and honestly I expect better from WOTC. Second, there is a lot of buildup to the end of the story... the big fight, the confrontation between good and evil, etc... which is handled in just a few pages and then the story basically just ends. Kind of a letdown, honestly. There wasn't a big finish, and it wasn't a cliffhanger, it just wraps up neatly and ends. It felt pretty rushed. Overall, aside from the very end, I enjoyed it. I really liked the insight into that region of Athas and it gave me some good ideas for fleshing out my own campaign. In that sense, the book served its purpose for me. If you're looking for a light read (got a 5-6 hour flight somewhere?) or you want to learn more about the Dark Sun setting, then I'd recommend this book.

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