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• Is a university education really worth it for a good programmer?

  - by Jon Purdy

  The title says it all, but here's the personal side of it: I've been doing design and programming for about as long as I can remember. If there's a programming problem, I can figure it out. (Though admittedly StackOverflow has allowed me to skip the figuring out and get straight to the doing in many instances.) I've made games, esoteric programming languages, and widgets and gizmos galore. I'm currently working on a general-purpose programming language. There's nothing I do better than programming. However, I'm just as passionate about design. Thus when I felt leaving high school that my design skills were lacking, I decided to attend university for New Media Design and Imaging, a digital design-related major. For a year, I diligently studied art and programmed in my free time. As the next year progressed, however, I was obligated to take fewer art and design classes and more technical classes. The trouble was of course that these classes were geared toward non-technical students, and were far beneath my skill level at the time. No amount of petitioning could overcome the institution's reluctance to allow me to test out of such classes, and the major offered no promise for any greater challenge in the future, so I took the extreme route: I switched into the technical equivalent of the major, New Media Interactive Development. A lot of my credits moved over into the new major, but many didn't. It would have been infeasible to switch to a more rigorous technical major such as Computer Science, and having tutored Computer Science students at every level here, I doubt I would be exposed to anything that I haven't already or won't eventually find out on my own, since I'm so involved in the field. I'm now on track to graduate perhaps a year later than I had planned, which puts a significant financial strain on my family and my future self. My schedule continues to be bogged down with classes that are wholly unnecessary for me to take. I'm being re-introduced to subjects that I've covered a thousand times over, simply because I've always been interested in it all. And though I succeed in avoiding the cynical and immature tactic of failing to complete work out of some undeserved sense of superiority, I'm becoming increasingly disillusioned by the lack of intellectual stimulation. Further, my school requires students to complete a number of quarters of co-op work experience proportional to their major. My original major required two quarters, but my current requires three, delaying my graduation even more. To top it all off, college is putting a severe strain on my relationship with my very close partner of a few years, so I've searched diligently for co-op jobs in my area, alas to no avail. I'm now in my third year, and approaching that point past which I can no longer handle this. Either I keep my head down, get a degree no matter what it takes, and try to get a job with a company that will pay me enough to do what I love that I can eventually pay off my loans; or I cut my losses now, move wherever there is work, and in six months start paying off what debt I've accumulated thus far. So the real question is: is a university education really more than just a formality? It's a big decision, and one I can't make lightly. I think this is the appropriate venue for this kind of question, and I hope it sticks around for the sake of others who might someday find themselves in similar situations. My heartfelt thanks for reading, and in advance for your help.

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• Get Your Enterprise Working With Oracle On Track Communication 1.0

  - by Josh Lannin

  The On Track Development team is very pleased to announce that today On Track is available for our customers to download and evaluate.  To learn more about what On Track does start with our whitepaper and datasheet.   If you are a developer, take a look at our documentation and samples posted to our OTN page. For this first blog post, I’ll be speaking to several notable points about our product. Graceful Escalation via Conversations: On Track addresses the “Collaboration Problem” through a single guiding principle – graceful escalation – within the construct of a Conversation. In On Track, collaboration is based on a context (called a “Conversation”) that gracefully escalates in form, structure, and content, as dictated by the particular needs of a given collaboration.  Within that context, On Track provides a rich set of tools to choose from.  These tools provide for communication, coordination, content management, organization, decision making, and analysis -- all essential aspects of collaboration, but not all of them are essential all of the time.  Every collaborative interaction will evolve differently.  Some will evolve to represent work spreading over the course of years and involving a large, distributed team, while others may involve few people and not evolve at all.  Regardless, all collaborative contexts are built from the same parts, utilize the same concepts, and start the same way.  The principle of graceful escalation is that you only use the tools and structure you need; so you only incur the complexity you need. Purposeful Collaboration: Through application integration, On Track Conversations bring enterprise application users the communication and collaboration capabilities required to complete business process.  By association with specific processes or business objects conversations extend the possible interactions and broaden participation to internal or external non-application users and provide a sophisticated interaction experience, all the while enhancing the data set within the owning application.  Purposeful collaboration not only needs to happen in the context of applications, it must support a full range of real-time and long-running interactions to provide the greatest value. Multi Client, Multi Modal: This On Track 1.0 product release includes the same day availability of  multiple clients, including iPhone and iPad applications which are now available on the Apple Store, a fully capable and accessible Outlook Add-In, along with our browser web client.  With each client we have sought to leverage the strengths of each unique device- our iPhone client supports picture and voice posts, the iPad is optimized for meeting room situations and document viewing, and our Outlook add-in allows you to take emails in context and bring them into On Track.  In addition to supporting a diverse array of clients, On Track provides a unified multi modal experience support starting with basic messages moving through to integrated documents with live annotations, snapshots, application sharing, and voice. Next Generation Web Architecture: We believe On Track will help move the bar higher for what users can expect from all web applications, most notably ones that involve real-time activity.  On Track is built from the ground up with an innovative, real-time architecture that leverages the extensive push capabilities of our server.  Whether you are receiving a new message, viewing where crowds of people are collaborating, or doing live annotation on a document with a set of people, that information comes to you immediately without refreshes or moving back and forth between pages.  We’ve leveraged this core architecture across the product experience and raised the user experience bar for this type of application.  As well these capabilities are based on open standards and protocols, and are fully extensible by anyone- enabling sophisticated integrations to be created with a wide variety of both legacy and next-generation applications. Agile Product Development: As a product team we operate using continuous feedback and modified agile development methodologies.  We have thousands of active internal Oracle users who have helped pilot our product for critical business functions, and the On Track product development team uses our product as our primary vehicle for all our collaboration.  Additionally we been working with early access customers who are adopting our technology and providing us valuable feedback - which our process has rapidly realized in improvements to our software.  On Track agility extends to our server as well, which is built to scale, and is very simple to install and configure. We are pleased to make this product announcement and encourage you to join us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter, as well as checking back here for the latest product information.

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• What information must never appear in logs?

  - by MainMa

  I'm about to write the company guidelines about what must never appear in logs (trace of an application). In fact, some developers try to include as many information as possible in trace, making it risky to store those logs, and extremely dangerous to submit them, especially when the customer doesn't know this information is stored, because she never cared about this and never read documentation and/or warning messages. For example, when dealing with files, some developers are tempted to trace the names of the files. For example before appending file name to a directory, if we trace everything on error, it will be easy to notice for example that the appended name is too long, and that the bug in the code was to forget to check for the length of the concatenated string. It is helpful, but this is sensitive data, and must never appear in logs. In the same way: Passwords, IP addresses and network information (MAC address, host name, etc.)¹, Database accesses, Direct input from user and stored business data must never appear in trace. So what other types of information must be banished from the logs? Are there any guidelines already written which I can use? ¹ Obviously, I'm not talking about things as IIS or Apache logs. What I'm talking about is the sort of information which is collected with the only intent to debug the application itself, not to trace the activity of untrusted entities. Edit: Thank you for your answers and your comments. Since my question is not too precise, I'll try to answer the questions asked in the comments: What I'm doing with the logs? The logs of the application may be stored in memory, which means either in plain on hard disk on localhost, in a database, again in plain, or in Windows Events. In every case, the concern is that those sources may not be safe enough. For example, when a customer runs an application and this application stores logs in plain text file in temp directory, anybody who has a physical access to the PC can read those logs. The logs of the application may also be sent through internet. For example, if a customer has an issue with an application, we can ask her to run this application in full-trace mode and to send us the log file. Also, some application may sent automatically the crash report to us (and even if there are warnings about sensitive data, in most cases customers don't read them). Am I talking about specific fields? No. I'm working on general business applications only, so the only sensitive data is business data. There is nothing related to health or other fields covered by specific regulations. But thank you to talk about that, I probably should take a look about those fields for some clues about what I can include in guidelines. Isn't it easier to encrypt the data? No. It would make every application much more difficult, especially if we want to use C# diagnostics and TraceSource. It would also require to manage authorizations, which is not the easiest think to do. Finally, if we are talking about the logs submitted to us from a customer, we must be able to read the logs, but without having access to sensitive data. So technically, it's easier to never include sensitive information in logs at all and to never care about how and where those logs are stored.

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• How do I use setFilmSize in panda3d to achieve the correct view?

  - by lhk

  I'm working with Panda3d and recently switched my game to isometric rendering. I moved the virtual camera accordingly and set an orthographic lens. Then I implemented the classes "Map" and "Canvas". A canvas is a dynamically generated mesh: a flat quad. I'm using it to render the ingame graphics. Since the game itself is still set in a 3d coordinate system I'm planning to rely on these canvases to draw sprites. I could have named this class "Tile" but as I'd like to use it for non-tile sketches (enemies, environment) as well I thought canvas would describe it's function better. Map does exactly what it's name suggests. Its constructor receives the number of rows and columns and then creates a standard isometric map. It uses the canvas class for tiles. I'm planning to write a map importer that reads a file to create maps on the fly. Here's the canvas implementation: class Canvas: def __init__(self, texture, vertical=False, width=1,height=1): # create the mesh format=GeomVertexFormat.getV3t2() format = GeomVertexFormat.registerFormat(format) vdata=GeomVertexData("node-vertices", format, Geom.UHStatic) vertex = GeomVertexWriter(vdata, 'vertex') texcoord = GeomVertexWriter(vdata, 'texcoord') # add the vertices for a flat quad vertex.addData3f(1, 0, 0) texcoord.addData2f(1, 0) vertex.addData3f(1, 1, 0) texcoord.addData2f(1, 1) vertex.addData3f(0, 1, 0) texcoord.addData2f(0, 1) vertex.addData3f(0, 0, 0) texcoord.addData2f(0, 0) prim = GeomTriangles(Geom.UHStatic) prim.addVertices(0, 1, 2) prim.addVertices(2, 3, 0) self.geom = Geom(vdata) self.geom.addPrimitive(prim) self.node = GeomNode('node') self.node.addGeom(self.geom) # this is the handle for the canvas self.nodePath=NodePath(self.node) self.nodePath.setSx(width) self.nodePath.setSy(height) if vertical: self.nodePath.setP(90) # the most important part: "Drawing" the image self.texture=loader.loadTexture(""+texture+".png") self.nodePath.setTexture(self.texture) Now the code for the Map class class Map: def __init__(self,rows,columns,size): self.grid=[] for i in range(rows): self.grid.append([]) for j in range(columns): # create a canvas for the tile. For testing the texture is preset tile=Canvas(texture="../assets/textures/flat_concrete",width=size,height=size) x=(i-1)*size y=(j-1)*size # set the tile up for rendering tile.nodePath.reparentTo(render) tile.nodePath.setX(x) tile.nodePath.setY(y) # and store it for later access self.grid[i].append(tile) And finally the usage def loadMap(self): self.map=Map(10, 10, 1) this function is called within the constructor of the World class. The instantiation of world is the entry point to the execution. The code is pretty straightforward and runs good. Sadly the output is not as expected: Please note: The problem is not the white rectangle, it's my player object. The problem is that although the map should have equal width and height it's stretched weirdly. With orthographic rendering I expected the map to be a perfect square. What did I do wrong ? UPDATE: I've changed the viewport. This is how I set up the orthographic camera: lens = OrthographicLens() lens.setFilmSize(40, 20) base.cam.node().setLens(lens) You can change the "aspect" by modifying the parameters of setFilmSize. I don't know exactly how they are related to window size and screen resolution but after testing a little the values above seem to work for me. Now everything is rendered correctly as long as I don't resize the window. Every change of the window's size as well as switching to fullscreen destroys the correct rendering. I know that implementing a listener for resize events is not in the scope of this question. However I wonder why I need to make the Film's height two times bigger than its width. My window is quadratic ! Can you tell me how to find out correct setting for the FilmSize ? UPDATE 2: I can imagine that it's hard to envision the behaviour of the game. At first glance the obvious solution is to pass the window's width and height in pixels to setFilmSize. There are two problems with that approach. The parameters for setFilmSize are ingame units. You'll get a way to big view if you pass the pixel size For some strange reason the image is distorted if you pass equal values for width and height. Here's the output for setFilmSize(800,800) You'll have to stress your eyes but you'll see what I mean

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama Top 10 for September 2-8, 2012

  - by Bob Rhubart

  The Top 10 items shared on the OTN Facebook Page for the week of September 2-8, 2012. Adding a runtime LOV for a taskflow parameter in WebCenter | Yannick Ongena Oracle ACE Yannick Ongena illustrates how to customize the parameters tab for a taskflow in WebCenter. Tips on Migrating from AquaLogic .NET Accelerator to WebCenter WSRP Producer for .NET | Scott Nelson "It has been a very winding path and this blog entry is intended to share both the lessons learned and relevant approaches that led to those learnings," says Scott Nelson. "Like most journeys of discovery, it was not a direct path, and there are notes to let you know when it is practical to skip a section if you are in a hurry to get from here to there." Free Event: Oracle Technology Network Architect Day – Boston, MA – 9/12/2012 Sure, you could ask a voodoo priestess for help in improving your solution architecture skills. But there's the whole snake thing, and the zombie thing, and other complications. So why not keep it simple and register for Oracle Technology Network Architect Day in Boston, MA. There's no magic, just a full day of technical sessions covering Cloud, SOA, Engineered Systems, and more. Registration is free, but seating is limited. You'll curse yourself if you miss this one. Starting and Stopping Fusion Applications the Right Way | Ronaldo Viscuso While the fastartstop tool that ships with Oracle Fusion Applications does most of the work to start/stop/bounce the Fusion Apps environment, it does not do it all. Oracle Fusion Applications A-Team blogger Ronaldo Viscuso's post "aims to explain all tasks involved in starting and stopping a Fusion Apps environment completely." Article Index: Architect Community Column in Oracle Magazine Did you know that Oracle Magazine features a regular column devoted specifically to the architect community? Every issue includes insight and expertise from architects who regularly work with Oracle Technologies. Click here to see a complete list of these articles. Using FMAP and AnalyticsRes in a Oracle BI High Availability Implementation | Art of Business Intelligence "The fmap syntax has been used for a long time in Oracle BI / Siebel Analytics when referencing images inherent in the application as well as custom images," says Oracle ACE Christian Screen. "This syntax is used on Analysis requests an dashboards." Dodeca Customer Feedback - The Rosewood Company | Tim Tow Oracle ACE Director Tim Tow shares anecdotal comments from one of his clients, a company that is deploying Dodeca to replace an aging VBA/Essbase application. Configuring UCM cache to check for external Content Server changes | Martin Deh Oracle WebCenter and ADF A-Team blogger shares the background information and the solution to a recently encountered customer scenario. Attend OTN Architect Day in Los Angeles – by Architects, for Architects – October 25 The OTN Architect Day roadshow stops in Boston next week, then it's on to Los Angeles for another all architecture, all day event on Thursday October 25, 2012 at the Sofitel Los Angeles, 555 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90048. Like all Architect Day events, this one is absolutley free, so register now. The Role of Oracle VM Server for SPARC In a Virtualization Strategy New OTN article from Matthias Pfutzner. Thought for the Day "Practicing architects, through eduction, experience and examples, accumulate a considerable body of contextual sense by the time they're entrusted with solving a system-level problem…" — Eberhardt Rechtin (January 16, 1926 – April 14, 2006) Source: SoftwareQuotes.com

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• How to Waste Your Marketing Budget

  - by Mike Stiles

  Philosophers have long said if you find out where a man’s money is, you’ll know where his heart is. Find out where money in a marketing budget is allocated, and you’ll know how adaptive and ready that company is for the near future. Marketing spends are an investment. Not unlike buying stock, the money is placed in areas the marketer feels will yield the highest return. Good stock pickers know the lay of the land, the sectors, the companies, and trends. Likewise, good marketers should know the media available to them, their audience, what they like & want, what they want their marketing to achieve…and trends. So what are they doing? And how are they doing? A recent eTail report shows nearly half of retailers planned on focusing on SEO, SEM, and site research technologies in the coming months. On the surface, that’s smart. You want people to find you. And you’re willing to let the SEO tail wag the dog and dictate the quality (or lack thereof) of your content such as blogs to make that happen. So search is prioritized well ahead of social, multi-channel initiatives, email, even mobile - despite the undisputed explosive growth and adoption of it by the public. 13% of retailers plan to focus on online video in the next 3 months. 29% said they’d look at it in 6 months. Buying SEO trickery is easy. Attracting and holding an audience with wanted, relevant content…that’s the hard part. So marketers continue to kick the content can down the road. Pretty risky since content can draw and bind customers to you. Asked to look a year ahead, retailers started thinking about CRM systems, customer segmentation, and loyalty, (again well ahead of online video, social and site personalization). What these investors are missing is social is spreading across every function of the enterprise and will be a part of CRM, personalization, loyalty programs, etc. They’re using social for engagement but not for PR, customer service, and sales. Mistake. Allocations are being made seemingly blind to the trends. Even more peculiar are the results of an analysis Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins made. She looked at how much time people spend with media types and how marketers are investing in those media. 26% of media consumption is online, marketers spend 22% of their ad budgets there. 10% of media time is spent with mobile, but marketers are spending 1% of their ad budgets there. 7% of media time is spent with print, but (get this) marketers spend 25% of their ad budgets there. It’s like being on Superman’s Bizarro World. Mary adds that of the online spending, most goes to search while spends on content, even ad content, stayed flat. Stock pickers know to buy low and sell high. It means peering with info in hand into the likely future of a stock and making the investment in it before it peaks. Either marketers aren’t believing the data and trends they’re seeing, or they can’t convince higher-ups to acknowledge change and adjust their portfolios accordingly. Follow @mikestilesImage via stock.xchng

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• How Do You Actually Model Data?

  Since the 1970’s Developers, Analysts and DBAs have been able to represent concepts and relations in the form of data through the use of generic symbols.  But what is data modeling?  The first time I actually heard this term I could not understand why anyone would want to display a computer on a fashion show runway. Hey, what do you expect? At that time I was a freshman in community college, and obviously this was a long time ago.  I have since had the chance to learn what data modeling truly is through using it. Data modeling is a process of breaking down information and/or requirements in to common categories called objects. Once objects start being defined then relationships start to form based on dependencies found amongst other existing objects.  Currently, there are several tools on the market that help data designer actually map out objects and their relationships through the use of symbols and lines.  These diagrams allow for designs to be review from several perspectives so that designers can ensure that they have the optimal data design for their project and that the design is flexible enough to allow for potential changes and/or extension in the future. Additionally these basic models can always be further refined to show different levels of details depending on the target audience through the use of three different types of models. Conceptual Data Model(CDM)Conceptual Data Models include all key entities and relationships giving a viewer a high level understanding of attributes. Conceptual data model are created by gathering and analyzing information from various sources pertaining to a project during the typical planning phase of a project. Logical Data Model (LDM)Logical Data Models are conceptual data models that have been expanded to include implementation details pertaining to the data that it will store. Additionally, this model typically represents an origination’s business requirements and business rules by defining various attribute data types and relationships regarding each entity. This additional information can be directly translated to the Physical Data Model which reduces the actual time need to implement it. Physical Data Model(PDMs)Physical Data Model are transformed Logical Data Models that include the necessary tables, columns, relationships, database properties for the creation of a database. This model also allows for considerations regarding performance, indexing and denormalization that are applied through database rules, data integrity. Further expanding on why we actually use models in modern application/database development can be seen in the benefits that data modeling provides for data modelers and projects themselves, Benefits of Data Modeling according to Applied Information Science Abstraction that allows data designers remove concepts and ideas form hard facts in the form of data. This gives the data designers the ability to express general concepts and/or ideas in a generic form through the use of symbols to represent data items and the relationships between the items. Transparency through the use of data models allows complex ideas to be translated in to simple symbols so that the concept can be understood by all viewpoints and limits the amount of confusion and misunderstanding. Effectiveness in regards to tuning a model for acceptable performance while maintaining affordable operational costs. In addition it allows systems to be built on a solid foundation in terms of data. I shudder at the thought of a world without data modeling, think about it? Data is everywhere in our lives. Data modeling allows for optimizing a design for performance and the reduction of duplication. If one was to design a database without data modeling then I would think that the first things to get impacted would be database performance due to poorly designed database and there would be greater chances of unnecessary data duplication that would also play in to the excessive query times because unneeded records would need to be processed. You could say that a data designer designing a database is like a box of chocolates. You will never know what kind of database you will get until after it is built.

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• Best depth sorting method for a Top Down 2D game using a 3D physics engine

  - by Alic44

  I've spent many days googling this and still have issues with my game engine I'd like to ask about, which I haven't seen addressed before. I think the problem is that my game is an unusual combination of a completely 2D graphical approach using XNA's SpriteBatch, and a completely 3D engine (the amazing BEPU physics engine) with rotation mostly disabled. In essence, my question is similar to this one (the part about "faux 3D"), but the difference is that in my game, the player as well as every other creature is represented by 3D objects, and they can all jump, pick up other objects, and throw them around. What this means is that sorting by one value, such as a Z position (how far north/south a character is on the screen) won't work, because as soon as a smaller creature jumps on top of a larger creature, or a box, and walks backwards, the moment its z value is less than that other creature, it will appear to be behind the object it is actually standing on. I actually originally solved this problem by splitting every object in the game into physics boxes which MUST have a Y height equal to their Z depth. I then based the depth sorting value on the object's y position (how high it is off the ground) PLUS its z position (how far north or south it is on the screen). The problem with this approach is that it requires all moving objects in the game to be split graphically into chunks which match up with a physical box which has its y dimension equal to its z dimension. Which is stupid. So, I got inspired last night to rewrite with a fresh approach. My new method is a little more complex, but I think a little more sane: every object which needs to be sorted by depth in the game exposes the interface IDepthDrawable and is added to a list owned by the DepthDrawer object. IDepthDrawable contains: public interface IDepthDrawable { Rectangle Bounds { get; } //possibly change this to a class if struct copying of the xna Rectangle type becomes an issue DepthDrawShape DepthShape { get; } void Draw(SpriteBatch spriteBatch); } The Bounds Rectangle of each IDepthDrawable object represents the 2D Axis-Aligned Bounding Box it will take up when drawn to the screen. Anything that doesn't intersect the screen will be culled at this stage and the remaining on-screen IDepthDrawables will be Bounds tested for intersections with each other. This is where I get a little less sure of what I'm doing. Each group of collisions will be added to a list or other collection, and each list will sort itself based on its DepthShape property, which will have access to the object-to-be-drawn's physics information. For starting out, lets assume everything in the game is an axis aligned 3D Box shape. Boxes are pretty easy to sort. Something like: if (depthShape1.Back > depthShape2.Front) //if depthShape1 is in front of depthShape2. //depthShape1 goes on top. else if (depthShape1.Bottom > depthShape2.Top) //if depthShape1 is above depthShape2. //depthShape1 goes on top. //if neither of these are true, depthShape2 must be in front or above. So, by sorting draw order by several different factors from the physics engine, I believe I can get a really correct draw order. My question is, is this a good way of going about this, or is there some tried and true, tested way which is completely different and has somehow completely eluded me on the internets? And, if this does seem like a good way to remake my draw order sorting, what's the right sorting algorithm for reordering the Bounds Rectangle collision lists, and how do you deal with a Bounds Rectangle colliding with two different object which don't collide with eachother. I know these are solved problems, but I've only been programming for a year so any specific input here will be greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading this far, ye who made it -- sorry it was so long!

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for 2012-08-30

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Next Generation Mobile Clients for Oracle Applications & the role of Oracle Fusion Middleware | Manish Palaparthy Manish Palaparthy examines some of Oracle's mobile applications, and takes a look at the underlying technology. Master Data Management: A Foundation for Big Data Analysis | Manouj Tahiliani "Businesses that have embraced MDM to get a single, enriched and unified view of Master data by resolving semantic discrepancies and augmenting the explicit master data information from within the enterprise with implicit data from outside the enterprise like social profiles will have a leg up in embracing Big Data solutions. This is especially true for large and medium-sized businesses in industries like Retail, Communications, Financial Services, etc that would find it very challenging to get comprehensive analytical coverage and derive long-term success without resolving the limitations of the heterogeneous topology that leads to disparate, fragmented and incomplete master data." — Manouj Tahiliani Architect Day: Boston - Agenda Update Here's the latest updated information on the session schedule and content for Oracle Technology Network Architect Day in Boston, MA on September 12, 2012. Registration is open, but seating is limited. OTN Architect Day: Boston is being held on Wednesday September 12, 2012, 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., at the Boston Marriott Burlington, One Burlington Mall Road, Burlington, MA 01803. Integrating Coherence & Java EE 6 Applications using ActiveCache | Ricardo Ferreira The seamless integration between Oracle Coherence and Oracle WebLogic Server "provides a comprehensive environment to develop applications without the complexity of extra Java code to manage cache as a dependency," explains Ricardo Ferreira, "since Oracle provides a DI (Dependency Injection) mechanism for Coherence, the same DI mechanism available in standard Java EE applications. This feature is called ActiveCache." Ricardo shows you how to configure ActiveCache in WebLogic and your Java EE application. Cloud Infrastructure has a new standard from the DMTF "Unlike a de facto standard where typically one vendor has change control over the interface, and everyone else has to reverse engineer the inner workings of it, [Cloud Infrastructure Management Interface (CIMI)] is a de jure standard that is under change control of a standards body. One reason the standard took two years to create is that we factored in use cases, requirements and contributed APIs from multiple vendors. These vendors have products shipping today and as a result CIMI has a strong foundation in real world experience." Oracle GoldenGate 11g Release Launch Webcast- September 12 The new release of Oracle GoldenGate 11g is now available for major databases and platforms. Register for this webcast and live Q&A with product experts to learn about the solution's new features. September 12, 2012. 8:00am AM and 10:00AM PT. Speakers: Doug Reid (Director, Product Management, Oracle GoldenGate), Irem Radzik (Director, Product Marketing, Oracle Data Integration Products) Thought for the Day "[When] asking skilled architects…what they do when confronted with highly complex problems… [they] would most likely answer, 'Just use Common Sense.' [A] better expression than 'common sense' is 'contextual sense'—a knowledge of what is reasonable within a given context. Practicing architects through eduction, experience and examples accumulate a considerable body of contextual sense by the time they're entrusted with solving a system-level problem…" — Eberhardt Rechtin (January 16, 1926 – April 14, 2006) Source: SoftwareQuotes.com

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• Building a personal website using Silverlight.

  - by mbcrump

  I’ve always believed that as a developer you should always have a hobby project going on. I think a hobby project needs to contain at least one of following things: Something that you have never done before. Something that you are interested in. Something that you can work on in your spare time without affecting your *paying* job. I decided my hobby project would be an entire web application written in Silverlight that could be used as a self-promotion/marketing tool. This goal of the site is to provide information on the work that I’ve done to conferences, future employers and anyone else that wanted to learn more about me. Before I go any further, if you just want to check out the site then it is located at http://michaelcrump.info. So, what did I use to create it? MVVM Light – I’m a big fan of this software. The item and project templates plus code snippets make this a huge win for any SL/WPF/WP7 application. Jetpack Theme by Microsoft – I suck at designing so I used this template to help speed up this project. ComponentOne 3rd Party Controls – I have a license and really like several of their products. A User Control that Jeremy Likness created called DynamicXaml (used with his permission). I had created my own version of this a while back, but Jeremy’s implementation was simply better. Main Page – Designed to create my “brand”. This was built for a quick glimpse of who I am and what do I do.  Blog – The best marketing tool for a developer is their blog. I decided to go with an HTML page displaying my site and the user could pop into full-screen if desired. I also included my feed and Silverlight-Zone. (Another site I work on) Online – This page links to sites that I have been featured on as well as community involvement and awards. I also have a web service that I can update this information without re-compiling the Silverlight App. Projects – I’ve been wanting to use a CoverFlow for a really long time now. =) This page list several hobby projects as well as a few professional projects.  Resume Page – This page only exist because I got tired of sending companies my resume in e-mail. I can now provide a deep link to this page and the recruiter can print, search or save my resume. The PDF of my resume exist in a folder that I can easily update without recompiling the app. Contact Page – Just a contact page with a web service that sends the email. The Send button becomes disabled after a successful send. I thought of adding captcha to this page but in the end didn’t think it was worth it. Looking back at this app, I’m happy with how it turned out. I love Silverlight and I am already thinking of my next hobby project. (Thinking another Windows Phone 7 app or MVC3).  Subscribe to my feed

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• My search what the Cloud will mean for my Work, part 2

  - by Kay Sellenrode

  My experience with the cloud and why work will change and not disappear. Until now I have multiple experiences with the cloud, for the most good. i have worked on multiple cloud solutions in the past but let me describe them as 0.x versions. For me the 1st real serious cloud experience was a bit more than 1 year ago, when our company switched from an in house server to Microsoft BPOS as a complete replacement. Since we are a small consultancy firm and don’t have that much else to do than consulting, our IT requirements are quite simple. We need Mail and Storage space for our documents. With the in house server we had multiple outages during a year, mostly by lack of administering. Being consultants in the field and hardly having time to maintain a server, BPOS was and still is for us the right solution. Since the migration we have less outages and a much more robust solution. Have we run into issues with BPOS for our own environment? No not that I’m aware of. Based on this experience I made a stance about deploy ability of BPOS and cloud solutions, they are suitable for MKB (Dutch for Medium and Small Businesses). Most Small businesses don’t have the amount of work to hire a full time it admin. Hiring a service provider to maintain their own server might be even more costly than hiring an admin. So seeing the capabilities of BPOS and the needs of most businesses I see it as a great solution that gives the business a complete Server replacement solution for a fixed price per user. resulting in a clear budget for IT spending, something most small businesses were looking for, for a long time. So right now I’m deploying BPOS with a customer, and I run into some of the Cloud 1.0 issues. In my opinion BPOS is a good working Cloud version 1.0 solution. What do I mean with 1.0? Well 1.0 is mostly a tested solution (unlike 0.x versions) but still have quite some limitations caused by too few market experience. in my opnion this is also the reason why we don’t see that much BPOS customers yet and why I think Office 365 will make a huge difference. What I have seen of 365 shows me it is a Cloud 2.0 version, meaning it has all needed features and is much more flexible to the customer. This is also why I see changes happen in my work field, changes and not unemployment due to Cloud solutions. Cloud 1.0 solutions gave me the idea that if every customer would adopt them I would be out of work. But in reality Cloud 1.0 solutions are here just to set the market needs. The Cloud 2.0 and higher versions will give the customer much more flexibility, but also require the need for a consultant. Where the 1.0 versions are simple to setup and maintain, the 2.0 solution needs more thought upfront and afterwards. ie. BPOS in its 1.0 version brings you a very simplified Exchange 2007 solution, Suitable for some customers. Looking at Office 365 you receive almost a full blown Exchange 2010 solution. I expect this to be even more customizable in the next version. In my search for the changes to my work I try to regulary write a post with my thought around the Cloud and the impact on my work as a consultant. I'm also planning to present around this topic, so if anyone is interested to see me present around this topic, you're more than welcome to contact me.

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• Things I've noticed with DVCS

  - by Wes McClure

  Things I encourage: Frequent local commits This way you don't have to be bothered by changes others are making to the central repository while working on a handful of related tasks.  It's a good idea to try to work on one task at a time and commit all changes at partitioned stopping points.  A local commit doesn't have to build, just FYI, so a stopping point doesn't mean a build point nor a point that you can push centrally.  There should be several of these in any given day.  2 hours is a good indicator that you might not be leveraging the power of frequent local commits.  Once you have verified a set of changes works, save them away, otherwise run the risk of introducing bugs into it when working on the next task.  The notion of a task By task I mean a related set of changes that can be completed in a few hours or less.  In the same token don’t make your tasks so small that critically related changes aren’t grouped together.  Use your intuition and the rest of these principles and I think you will find what is comfortable for you. Partial commits Sometimes one task explodes or unknowingly encompasses other tasks, at this point, try to get to a stopping point on part of the work you are doing and commit it so you can get that out of the way to focus on the remainder.  This will often entail committing part of the work and continuing on the rest. Outstanding changes as a guide If you don't commit often it might mean you are not leveraging your version control history to help guide your work.  It's a great way to see what has changed and might be causing problems.  The longer you wait, the more that has changed and the harder it is to test/debug what your changes are doing! This is a reason why I am so picky about my VCS tools on the client side and why I talk a lot about the quality of a diff tool and the ability to integrate that with a simple view of everything that has changed.  This is why I love using TortoiseHg and SmartGit: they show changed files, a diff (or two way diff with SmartGit) of the current selected file and a commit message all in one window that I keep maximized on one monitor at all times. Throw away / stash commits There is extreme value in being able to throw away a commit (or stash it) that is getting out of hand.  If you do not commit often you will have to isolate the work you want to commit from the work you want to throw away, which is wasted productivity and highly prone to errors.  I find myself doing this about once a week, especially when doing exploratory re-factoring.  It's much easier if I can just revert all outstanding changes. Sync with the central repository daily The rest of us depend on your changes.  Don't let them sit on your computer longer than they have to.  Waiting increases the chances of merge conflict which just decreases productivity.  It also prohibits us from doing deploys when people say they are done but have not merged centrally.  This should be done daily!  Find a way to partition the work you are doing so that you can sync at least once daily. Things I discourage: Lots of partial commits right at the end of a series of changes If you notice lots of partial commits at the end of a set of changes, it's likely because you weren't frequently committing, nor were you watching for the size of the task expanding beyond a single commit.  Chances are this cost you productivity if you use your outstanding changes as a guide, since you would have an ever growing list of changes. Committing single files Committing single files means you waited too long and no longer understand all the changes involved.  It may mean there were overlapping changes in single files that cannot be isolated.  In either case, go back to the suggestions above to avoid this.  Committing frequently does not mean committing frequently right at the end of a day's work. It should be spaced out over the course of several tasks, not all at the end in a 5 minute window.

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• Responding to the page unload in a managed bean

  - by frank.nimphius

  Though ADF Faces provides an uncommitted data warning functionality, developers may have the requirement to respond to the page unload event within custom application code, programmed in a managed bean. The af:clientListener tag that is used in ADF Faces to listen for JavaScript and ADF Faces client component events does not provide the option to listen for the unload event. So this often recommended way of implementing JavaScript in ADF Faces does not work for this use case. To send an event from JavaScript to the server, ADF Faces provides the af:serverListener tag that you use to queue a CustomEvent that invokes method in a managed bean. While this is part of the solution, during testing, it turns out, the browser native JavaScript unload event itself is not very helpful to send an event to the server using the af:serverListener tag. The reason for this is that when the unload event fires, the page already has been unloaded and the ADF Faces AdfPage object needed to queue the custom event already returns null. So the solution to the unload page event handling is the unbeforeunload event, which I am not sure if all browsers support them. I tested IE and FF and obviously they do though. To register the beforeunload event, you use an advanced JavaScript programming technique that dynamically adds listeners to page events. <af:document id="d1" onunload="performUnloadEvent"                      clientComponent="true"> <af:resource type="javascript">   window.addEventListener('beforeunload',                            function (){performUnloadEvent()},false)      function performUnloadEvent(){   //note that af:document must have clientComponent="true" set   //for JavaScript to access the component object   var eventSource = AdfPage.PAGE.findComponentByAbsoluteId('d1');   //var x and y are dummy variables obviously needed to keep the page   //alive for as long it takes to send the custom event to the server   var x = AdfCustomEvent.queue(eventSource,                                "handleOnUnload",                                {args:'noargs'},false);   //replace args:'noargs' with key:value pairs if your event needs to   //pass arguments and values to the server side managed bean.   var y = 0; } </af:resource> <af:serverListener type="handleOnUnload"                    method="#{UnloadHandler.onUnloadHandler}"/> // rest of the page goes here … </af:document> The managed bean method called by the custom event has the following signature:  public void onUnloadHandler(ClientEvent clientEvent) {  } I don't really have a good explanation for why the JavaSCript variables "x" and "y" are needed, but this is how I got it working. To me it ones again shows how fragile custom JavaScript development is and why you should stay away from using it whenever possible. Note: If the unload event is produced through navigation in JavaServer Faces, then there is no need to use JavaScript for this. If you know that navigation is performed from one page to the next, then the action you want to perform can be handled in JSF directly in the context of the lifecycle.

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• Moving monarchs and dragons: migrating the JDK bugs to JIRA

  - by darcy

  Among insects, monarch butterflies and dragonflies have the longest migrations; migrating JDK bugs involves a long journey as well! As previously announced by Mark back in March, we've been working according to a revised plan to transition the JDK bug management from Sun's legacy system to initially an Oracle-internal JIRA instance which is afterward made visible and usable externally. I've been busily working on this project for the last few months and the team has made good progress on many aspects of the effort: JDK bugs will be imported into JIRA regardless of age; bugs will also be imported regardless of state, including closed bugs. Consequently, the JDK bug project will start pre-populated with over 100,000 existing bugs, some dating all the way back to 1994. This will allow a continuity of information and allow new issues to be linked to old ones. Using a custom import process, the Sun bug numbers will be preserved in JIRA. For example, the Sun bug with bug number 4040458 will become "JDK-4040458" in JIRA. In JIRA the project name, "JDK" in our case, is part of the bug's identifier. Bugs created after the JIRA migration will be numbered starting at 8000000; bugs imported from the legacy system have numbers ranging between 1000000 and 79999999. We're working with the bugs.sun.com team to try to maintain continuity of the ability to both read JDK bug information as well as to file new incidents. At least for now, the overall architecture of bugs.sun.com will be the same as it is today: it will be a gateway bridging to an Oracle-internal system, but the internal system will change to JIRA from the legacy database. Generally we are aiming to preserve the visibility of bugs currently viewable on bugs.sun.com; however, bugs in areas not related to the JDK will not be visible after the transition to JIRA. New incoming incidents will be sent to a separate JIRA project for initial triage before possibly being moved into the JDK project. JDK bug management leans heavily on being able to track the state of bugs in multiple releases, especially to coordinate delivering synchronized security releases (known as CPUs, critital patch updates, in Oracle parlance). For a security release, it is common for half a dozen or more release trains to be affected (for example, JDK 5, JDK 6 update, OpenJDK 6, JDK 7 update, JDK 8, virtual releases for HotSpot express, etc.). We've determined we need to track at least the tuple of (release, responsible engineer/assignee for the release, status in the release) for the release trains a fix is going into. To do this in JIRA, we are creating a separate port/backport issue type along with a custom link type to allow the multiple release information to be easily grouped and presented together. The Sun legacy system had a three-level classification scheme, product, category, and subcategory. Out of the box, JIRA only has a one-level classification, component. We've implemented a custom second-level classification, subcomponent. As part of the bug migration we've taken the opportunity to think about how bugs should be grouped under a two-level system and we'll the new system will be simpler and more regular. The main top-level components of the JDK product will include: core-libs client-libs deploy install security-libs other-libs tools hotspot For the libs areas, the primary name of the subcomportment will be the package of the API in question. In the core-libs component, there will be subcomponents like: java.lang java.lang.class_loading java.math java.util java.util:i18n In the tools component, subcomponents will primarily correspond to command names in $JDK/bin like, jar, javac, and javap. The first several bulk imports of the JDK bugs into JIRA have gone well and we're continuing to refine the import to have greater fidelity to the current data, including by reconstructing information not brought over in a structured fashion during the previous large JDK bug system migration back in 2004. We don't currently have a firm timeline of when the new system will be usable externally, but as it becomes available, I'll share further information in follow-up blog posts.

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• Unable to make properly work the Ralink rt3090 wifi card on my Lenovo B575 with Kubuntu 12.04 64bit

  - by Sebastien

  I look and tried many solution from many thread but I still unable to make this wifi card work properly (very slow, unable to connect to some wifi spot, etc.). I tried to compile the driver from the ralink website but it doesn't work. Tried to blacklist many mod, withou any result. So here are some command results, hope their help you help me: lspci sebastien@sebastien-portable:~$ lspci 00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 14h Processor Root Complex 00:01.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Wrestler [Radeon HD 6310] 00:01.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Wrestler HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 6250/6310] 00:11.0 SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 SATA Controller [AHCI mode] 00:12.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller 00:12.2 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller 00:13.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller 00:13.2 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller 00:14.0 SMBus: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SBx00 SMBus Controller (rev 42) 00:14.2 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) (rev 40) 00:14.3 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 LPC host controller (rev 40) 00:14.4 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge (rev 40) 00:14.5 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI2 Controller 00:15.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB700/SB800/SB900 PCI to PCI bridge (PCIE port 0) 00:15.2 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB900 PCI to PCI bridge (PCIE port 2) 00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 0 (rev 43) 00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 1 00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 2 00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 3 00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 4 00:18.5 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 6 00:18.6 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 5 00:18.7 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 7 02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 06) 03:00.0 Network controller: Ralink corp. RT3090 Wireless 802.11n 1T/1R PCIe lsmod sebastien@sebastien-portable:~$ lsmod Module Size Used by rt2800pci 18715 0 arc4 12529 2 rt2800lib 58925 1 rt2800pci crc_ccitt 12667 1 rt2800lib rt2x00pci 14577 1 rt2800pci rt2x00lib 55301 3 rt2800pci,rt2800lib,rt2x00pci mac80211 506816 3 rt2800lib,rt2x00pci,rt2x00lib cfg80211 205544 2 rt2x00lib,mac80211 eeprom_93cx6 12725 1 rt2800pci rt2860sta 864748 0 snd_hda_codec_conexant 62128 1 snd_hda_codec_hdmi 32474 1 uvcvideo 72627 0 rts5139 351143 0 snd_hda_intel 33773 4 videodev 98259 1 uvcvideo snd_hda_codec 127706 3 snd_hda_codec_conexant,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel snd_hwdep 13668 1 snd_hda_codec psmouse 87692 0 v4l2_compat_ioctl32 17128 1 videodev serio_raw 13211 0 k10temp 13166 0 snd_pcm 97188 3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec sp5100_tco 13791 0 i2c_piix4 13301 0 snd_seq_midi 13324 0 snd_rawmidi 30748 1 snd_seq_midi ideapad_laptop 18234 0 sparse_keymap 13890 1 ideapad_laptop rfcomm 47604 0 joydev 17693 0 snd_seq_midi_event 14899 1 snd_seq_midi bnep 18281 2 bluetooth 180104 10 rfcomm,bnep parport_pc 32866 0 ppdev 17113 0 snd_seq 61896 2 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event snd_timer 29990 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq snd_seq_device 14540 3 snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq snd 78855 18 snd_hda_codec_conexant,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device soundcore 15091 1 snd mac_hid 13253 0 snd_page_alloc 18529 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm lp 17799 0 parport 46562 3 parport_pc,ppdev,lp usbhid 47199 0 hid 99559 1 usbhid r8169 62099 0 radeon 804372 4 video 19596 0 wmi 19256 0 ttm 76949 1 radeon drm_kms_helper 46978 1 radeon drm 242038 6 radeon,ttm,drm_kms_helper i2c_algo_bit 13423 1 radeon iwconfig sebastien@sebastien-portable:~$ iwconfig lo no wireless extensions. wlan0 IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID:"4CE6763F0E0A" Mode:Managed Frequency:2.452 GHz Access Point: 4C:E6:76:3F:0E:0A Bit Rate=54 Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off Power Management:off Link Quality=70/70 Signal level=-39 dBm Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:100 Missed beacon:0 eth0 no wireless extensions.

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• Book Review: Oracle ADF 11gR2 Development Beginner's Guide

  - by Grant Ronald

  Packt Publishing asked me to review Oracle ADF 11gR2 Development Beginner's Guide by Vinod Krishnan, so on a couple of long flights I managed to get through the book in a couple of sittings. One point to make clear before I go into the review.  Having authored "The Quick Start Guide to Fusion Development: JDeveloper and Oracle ADF", I've written a book which covers the same topic/beginner level.  I also think that its worth stating up front that I applaud anyone who has gone  through the effort of writing a technical book. So well done Vinod.  But on to the review: The book itself is a good break down of topic areas.  Vinod starts with a quick tour around the IDE, which is an important step given all the work you do will be through the IDE.  The book then goes through the general path that I tend to always teach: a quick overview demo, ADF BC, validation, binding, UI, task flows and then the various "add on" topics like security, MDS and advanced topics.  So it covers the right topics in, IMO, the right order.  I also think the writing style flows nicely as well - Its a relatively easy book to read, it doesn't get too formal and the "Have a go hero" hands on sections will be useful for many. That said, I did pick out a number of styles/themes to the writing that I found went against the idea of a beginners guide.  For example, in writing my book, I tried to carefully avoid talking about topics not yet covered or not yet relevant at that point in someone's learning.  So, if I was a new ADF developer reading this book, did I really need to know about ADFBindingFilter and DataBindings.cpx file on page 58 - I've only just learned how to do a drag and drop simple application so showing me XML configuration files relevant to JSF/ADF lifecycle is probably going to scare me off! I found this in a couple of places, for example, the security chapter starts on page 219 but by page 222 (and most of the preceding pages are hands-on steps) we're diving into the web.xml, weblogic.xml, adf-config.xml, jsp-config.xml and jazn-data.xml.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you shouldn't know this, but I feel you have to get people on a strong grounding of the concepts before showing them implementation files.  If having just learned what ADF Security is will "The initialization parameter remove.anonymous.role is set to false for the JpsFilter filter as this filter is the first filter defined in the file" really going to help me? The other theme I found which I felt didn't work was that a couple of the chapters descended into a reference guide.  For example page 159 onwards basically lists UI components and their properties.  And page 87 onwards list the attributes of ADF BC in pretty much the same way as the on line help or developer guide, and I've a personal aversion to any sort of help that says pretty much what the attribute name is e.g. "Precision Rule: this option is used to set a strict precision rule", or "Property Set: this is the property set that has to be applied to the attribute". Hmmm, I think I could have worked that out myself, what I would want to know in a beginners guide are what are these for, what might I use them for...and if I don't need to use them to create an emp/dept example them maybe it’s better to leave them out. All that said, would the book help me - yes it would.  It’s obvious that Vinod knows ADF and his style is relatively easy going and the book covers all that it has to, but I think the book could have done a better job in the educational side of guiding beginners.

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• First Impressions of a MacBook (from a PC guy)

  - by dgreen

  Disclaimer: I've been a PC guy my entire working career. I'd probably characterize myself as a power user. Never afraid to bust out the console line. But working with a Mac is totally foreign to me. So for those Mac guys who are curious, this is how your world appears from the outside to a computer literate person :)My Macbook Air has arrived! And it's a thing of beauty:First, the specs: 13" MacBook Air, 2.0GHz Core i7 processor. Upgraded to 8GB of RAM for an additional $100, SSD flash storage  = 256GB. The plan is ultimately to use this baby for some iOS development but also some decent lifting in Windows with Visual Studio. Done a lot of reading  and between VMWare Fusion, Parallels and Bootcamp...I'm going to go with VMWare Fusion for $49.99And now my impressions (please re-read disclaimer before proceeding!):I open the box and am trying to understand exactly how the magsafe connector works (and how to disconnect it).  Why does it have two socket outlet plugs? Who knows.  I feel like Hansel in Zoolander. The files are "in" the computer.Stuck in my external hard drive (usb). So how do I get to the files? To the Googles!Argh...it can't read my external NTFS drive. Fat32 can't support field over 4GB…problematic since some of my existing VMWare image files are much larger than 4GB. Didn't see this coming.Three year old loves iPhoto. Super easy to use. Don't even know what I'm doing but I've already (accidentally) discovered the image filtering options. Fun stuff.First thing I downloaded ever => Chrome. I need something to ground me, something familiar. My token, if you will (sorry, gratuitous Inception joke).Ok, I get it… Finder == windows explorer. But where is my hierarchical structure? I miss the tree :(On that note, yeah…how do I see what "path" my files reside in? I'm afraid to know the answer. You know what scares more though…this notion of a smart folder. Feel like the godfather - just get the job done, I don't care how you handle it, I don't want to know...just get it done. What the hell is AirDrop?Mail…just worked. Still in shock that they have a free client for yahoo mail (please no yahoo jokes).mail -> deleting a message takes 5 seconds. Have they heard of async?"Command" key instead of "Control" ok, then what the $%&^! is the control key for then"aliases" == shortcuts I thinkI don't see the file system. And I'm scared. All these things I'm downloading…these .dmg files (bad name) where are they going? Can't seem to delete when they're doneUgh...realized need to buy a mini-to-vga adaptor if I want to use my external monitor ($13 on ebay, $39 in apple store).Windows docking is trickiest for me…this notion of detached windows with a menu bar at the top. I don't like this paradigm, it's confusing. But maybe because I've been using Windows for too long.Evernote, Dropbox desktop clients seem almost identical…few quirks here and there I need to get used to.iTunes is still a bit gross. In a weird way it's actually worse on a Mac if thats possible. This is not the MacBook's fault…this is a software design issue. Overall: UI will take some getting used to. Can't decide if this represents the future and I'm stuck in the past…or this is the past and I've been spoiled by the future (which would be Windows…don't be hating I happen to be very productive in Win7)  So there you go - my 90 minute first impression of the MacBook universe.

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• If not now, then when?

  - by Chris Gardner

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/freestylecoding/archive/2013/10/25/if-not-now-then-when.aspx The time has been flying by this year. It seems like only yesterday that I mentioned the gorillagator, a simple construct of confusion to try to draw attention to my message. In reality, that message was sent over a month ago. During that time, the hours slipped to days and days to weeks. Many exciting things have happened to myself; I'm sure many exciting things have happened to you. I'm also sure that many terrifying things have happened to children and their families. 62 children enter treatment at a Children's Miracle Network Hospital every minute. That's nearly 60,000 children since I sent the last email. To put that number in perspective, that is more than the population of Greenland. If we expand that to the past year, they have been nearly 550,000 children treated. That is almost the population of Huntsville, Decatur, and all their suburbs combined. Over the past 4 years, I have raised a little more than $3,000 for Children's Hospital of Alabama. As a result, I received a call from the organizers of Extra Life thanking me for my dedicated work and informing me that I was the top supporters for Children's Hospital of Alabama ... with my measly three grand. We can do much better than that. It may sound like I'm trying to have fun by playing games for 24 hours. It is more than that. It is me using my time and body as a catalyst. It is me putting my passion to work for a cause. It is me turning my love into something tangible. I have been campaigning and fighting to give these children a chance for years. I have been asking you to help me support these children and families. I've been putting in countless hours of talking to people, impassioned emails, and carefully constructed tweets. I have been fighting with cutting edge, and sometimes expensive, technology to try to provide live streams of my marathons. I yearly put my body through 24 (and, this year, 25) hours of no sleep. I do this to represent the countless hours these families sit awake at their children's side. All I ask is a few minutes on a website and a few dollars. These few minutes and few dollars go a long way help people that are experiencing circumstances that only occur in our nightmares. I also ask that you take one extra step. Forward this plea to those that you know. I can only reach a small fraction of a percentage of the people that may be able to help. Together, we can reach the world. I raise money for Children's Hospital of Alabama. As this message branches out, people may wish to support a hospital closer to their area. I have included a link to the list of people that have dedicated their time and have received no donations. Find someone on the list supporting your local hospital and give them a donation. Let them know that their time and effort are appreciated. Together, we can do something great. Together, we can make a difference. Together, we all stand tall. Thank you. You can get more information at http://www.extra-life.org and http://childrensmiraclenetworkhospitals.org/" My donation page is http://www.extra-life.org/participant/cgardner The list of participants without donations is http://www.extra-life.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.eventParticipantList&page=629&eventID=512

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• Persevering & Friday Night Big Ideas

  - by Oracle Accelerate for Midsize Companies

  by Jim Lein, Oracle Midsize Programs Every successful company, personal accomplishment, and philanthropic endeavor starts with one good idea. I have my best ideas on Friday evenings. The creative side of my brain is stimulated by end of week endorphins. Free thinking. Anything is possible. But, as my kids love to remind me, most of Dad's Friday Night Big Ideas (FNBIs) fizzle on the drawing board. Usually there's one barrier blocking the way that seems insurmountable by noon on Monday. For example, trekking the 486 mile Colorado Trail is on my bucket list. Since I have a job, I'll have to do it in bits and pieces--day hikes, weekends, and a vacation week here and there. With my trick neck, backpacking is not an option. How to survive equip myself for overnight backcountry travel was that one seemingly insurmountable barrier.  Persevering Lewis and Clark wouldn't have given up so I explored options and, as I blogged about back in December, I had an FNBI to hire llamas to carry my load. Last weekend, that idea came to fruition. Early Saturday morning, I met up with Bill, the owner of Antero Llamas, for an overnight training expedition along segment 14 of the Colorado Trail with a string of twelve llamas. It was a crash course on learning how to saddle, load, pasture, and mediate squabbles. Amazingly, we left the trailhead with me, the complete novice, at the lead. Instead of trying to impart three decades of knowledge on me in two days, Bill taught me two things: "Go With the Flow" and "Plan B". It worked. There were times I would be lost in thought for long stretches of time until one snort would remind me that I had a string of twelve llamas trailing behind. A funny thing happened along the trail... Up until last Saturday, my plan had been to trek all 28 segments of the trail east to west and sequentially. Out of some self-imposed sense of decorum. That plan presented myriad logistical challenges such as impassable snow pack on the Continental Divide when segment 6 is up next. On Sunday, as we trekked along the base of 14,000 ft peaks, I applied Bill's llama handling philosophy to my quest and came up with a much more realistic and enjoyable strategy for achieving my goal.  Seize opportunities to hike regardless of order. Define my own segments. Go west to east for awhile if it makes more sense. Let the llamas carry more creature comforts. Chill out.  I will still set foot on all 486 miles of the trail. Technically, the end result will be the same.And I and my traveling companions--human and camelid--will enjoy the journey more. Much more. Got Big Ideas of Your Own? Check out Tongal. This growing Oracle customer works with brands to crowd source fantastic ideas for promoting products and services. Your great idea could earn you cash.  Looking for more news and information about Oracle Solutions for Midsize Companies? Read the latest Oracle for Midsize Companies Newsletter Sign-up to receive the latest communications from Oracle’s industry leaders and experts Jim Lein I evangelize Oracle's enterprise solutions for growing midsize companies. I recently celebrated 15 years with Oracle, having joined JD Edwards in 1999. I'm based in Evergreen, Colorado and love relating stories about creativity and innovation whether they be about software, live music, or the mountains. The views expressed here are my own, and not necessarily those of Oracle.

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• Convert old AVI files to a modern format

  - by iWerner

  Hi, we have a collection of old home videos that were saved in AVI format a long time ago. I want to convert these files to a more modern format because the Totem Movie Player that comes with Ubuntu 10.4 seems to be the only program capable of playing them. The files seem to be encoded with a MJPEG codec, and playing them in VLC or Windows Media Player plays only the sound but there is no video. Avidemux was able to open the files, but the quality of the video is severely degraded: The video skips frames and is interlaced (it's not interlaced when playing it in Totem). Neither ffmpeg nor mencoder seems to be able to read the video stream. mencoder reports that it is using ffmpeg's codec. Here's a section from its output: ========================================================================== Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family [mjpeg @ 0x92a7260]mjpeg: using external huffman table [mjpeg @ 0x92a7260]mjpeg: error using external huffman table, switching back to internal Unsupported PixelFormat -1 Selected video codec: [ffmjpeg] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg MJPEG) while running ffmpeg produces the following: $ ffmpeg -i input.avi output.avi FFmpeg version SVN-r0.5.1-4:0.5.1-1ubuntu1, Copyright (c) 2000-2009 Fabrice Bellard, et al. configuration: --extra-version=4:0.5.1-1ubuntu1 --prefix=/usr --enable-avfilter --enable-avfilter-lavf --enable-vdpau --enable-bzlib --enable-libgsm --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-pthreads --enable-zlib --disable-stripping --disable-vhook --enable-runtime-cpudetect --enable-gpl --enable-postproc --enable-swscale --enable-x11grab --enable-libdc1394 --enable-shared --disable-static libavutil 49.15. 0 / 49.15. 0 libavcodec 52.20. 1 / 52.20. 1 libavformat 52.31. 0 / 52.31. 0 libavdevice 52. 1. 0 / 52. 1. 0 libavfilter 0. 4. 0 / 0. 4. 0 libswscale 0. 7. 1 / 0. 7. 1 libpostproc 51. 2. 0 / 51. 2. 0 built on Mar 4 2010 12:35:30, gcc: 4.4.3 [avi @ 0x87952c0]non-interleaved AVI Input #0, avi, from 'input.avi': Duration: 00:00:15.24, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 22447 kb/s Stream #0.0: Video: mjpeg, yuvj422p, 720x544, 25 tbr, 25 tbn, 25 tbc Stream #0.1: Audio: pcm_s16le, 44100 Hz, stereo, s16, 1411 kb/s Output #0, avi, to 'output.avi': Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg4, yuv420p, 720x544, q=2-31, 200 kb/s, 90k tbn, 25 tbc Stream #0.1: Audio: mp2, 44100 Hz, stereo, s16, 64 kb/s Stream mapping: Stream #0.0 -> #0.0 Stream #0.1 -> #0.1 Press [q] to stop encoding frame= 0 fps= 0 q=0.0 Lsize= 143kB time=15.23 bitrate= 76.9kbits/s video:0kB audio:119kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead 20.101777% So the problem is that output does not contain any video, as evidenced by the video:0kB at the end. In all of the above cases the audio comes out fine. So my question is: What can I do to convert these files to a more modern format with more modern codecs?

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• VirtualBox 3.2 is released! A Red Letter Day?

  - by Fat Bloke

  Big news today! A new release of VirtualBox packed full of innovation and improvements. Over the next few weeks we'll take a closer look at some of these new features in a lot more depth, but today we'll whet your appetite with the headline descriptions. To start with, we should point out that this is the first Oracle-branded version which makes today a real Red-letter day ;-)  Oracle VM VirtualBox 3.2 Version 3.2 moves VirtualBox forward in 3 main areas ( handily, all beginning with "P" ) : performance, power and supported guest operating system platforms.  Let's take a look: Performance New Latest Intel hardware support - Harnessing the latest in chip-level support for virtualization, VirtualBox 3.2 supports new Intel Core i5 and i7 processor and Intel Xeon processor 5600 Series support for Unrestricted Guest Execution bringing faster boot times for everything from Windows to Solaris guests; New Large Page support - Reducing the size and overhead of key system resources, Large Page support delivers increased performance by enabling faster lookups and shorter table creation times. New In-hypervisor Networking - Significant optimization of the networking subsystem has reduced context switching between guests and host, increasing network throughput by up to 25%. New New Storage I/O subsystem - VirtualBox 3.2 offers a completely re-worked virtual disk subsystem which utilizes asynchronous I/O to achieve high-performance whilst maintaining high data integrity; New Remote Video Acceleration - The unique built-in VirtualBox Remote Display Protocol (VRDP), which is primarily used in virtual desktop infrastructure deployments, has been enhanced to deliver video acceleration. This delivers a rich user experience coupled with reduced computational expense, which is vital when servers are running hundreds of virtual machines; Power New Page Fusion - Traditional Page Sharing techniques have suffered from long and expensive cache construction as pages are scrutinized as candidates for de-duplication. Taking a smarter approach, VirtualBox Page Fusion uses intelligence in the guest virtual machine to determine much more rapidly and accurately those pages which can be eliminated thereby increasing the capacity or vm density of the system; New Memory Ballooning- Ballooning provides another method to increase vm density by allowing the memory of one guest to be recouped and made available to others; New Multiple Virtual Monitors - VirtualBox 3.2 now supports multi-headed virtual machines with up to 8 virtual monitors attached to a guest. Each virtual monitor can be a host window, or be mapped to the hosts physical monitors; New Hot-plug CPU's - Modern operating systems such Windows Server 2008 x64 Data Center Edition or the latest Linux server platforms allow CPUs to be dynamically inserted into a system to provide incremental computing power while the system is running. Version 3.2 introduces support for Hot-plug vCPUs, allowing VirtualBox virtual machines to be given more power, with zero-downtime of the guest; New Virtual SAS Controller - VirtualBox 3.2 now offers a virtual SAS controller, enabling it to run the most demanding of high-end guests; New Online Snapshot Merging - Snapshots are powerful but can eat up disk space and need to be pruned from time to time. Historically, machines have needed to be turned off to delete or merge snapshots but with VirtualBox 3.2 this operation can be done whilst the machines are running. This allows sophisticated system management with minimal interruption of operations; New OVF Enhancements - VirtualBox has supported the OVF standard for virtual machine portability for some time. Now with 3.2, VirtualBox specific configuration data is also stored in the standard allowing richer virtual machine definitions without compromising portability; New Guest Automation - The Guest Automation APIs allow host-based logic to drive operations in the guest; Platforms New USB Keyboard and Mouse - Support more guests that require USB input devices; New Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.5 - Support for the latest version of Oracle's flagship Linux platform; New Ubuntu 10.04 ("Lucid Lynx") - Support for both the desktop and server version of the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution; And as a man once said, "just one more thing" ... New Mac OS X (experimental) - On Apple hardware only, support for creating virtual machines run Mac OS X. All in all this is a pretty powerful release packed full of innovation and speedups. So what are you waiting for?  -FB 

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• Joystick example problem for android 2D

  - by iQue

  I've searched all over the web for an answer to this, and there are simular topics but nothing works for me, and I have no Idea why. I just want to move my sprite using a joystick, since I'm useless at math when it comes to angles etc I used an example, Ill post the code here: public float initx = 50; //og 425; public float inity = 300; //og 267; public Point _touchingPoint = new Point(50, 300); //og(425, 267); public Point _pointerPosition = new Point(100, 170); private Boolean _dragging = false; private MotionEvent lastEvent; @Override public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event) { if (event == null && lastEvent == null) { return _dragging; } else if (event == null && lastEvent != null) { event = lastEvent; } else { lastEvent = event; } // drag drop if (event.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN) { _dragging = true; } else if (event.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_UP) { _dragging = false; } if (_dragging) { // get the pos _touchingPoint.x = (int) event.getX(); _touchingPoint.y = (int) event.getY(); // bound to a box if (_touchingPoint.x < 25) { _touchingPoint.x = 25; //og 400 } if (_touchingPoint.x > 75) { _touchingPoint.x = 75; //og 450 } if (_touchingPoint.y < 275) { _touchingPoint.y = 275; //og 240 } if (_touchingPoint.y > 325) { _touchingPoint.y = 325; //og 290 } // get the angle double angle = Math.atan2(_touchingPoint.y - inity, _touchingPoint.x - initx) / (Math.PI / 180); // Move the beetle in proportion to how far // the joystick is dragged from its center _pointerPosition.y += Math.sin(angle * (Math.PI / 180)) * (_touchingPoint.x / 70); _pointerPosition.x += Math.cos(angle * (Math.PI / 180)) * (_touchingPoint.x / 70); // stop the sprite from goin thru if (_pointerPosition.x + happy.getWidth() >= getWidth()) { _pointerPosition.x = getWidth() - happy.getWidth(); } if (_pointerPosition.x < 0) { _pointerPosition.x = 0; } if (_pointerPosition.y + happy.getHeight() >= getHeight()) { _pointerPosition.y = getHeight() - happy.getHeight(); } if (_pointerPosition.y < 0) { _pointerPosition.y = 0; } } public void render(Canvas canvas) { canvas.drawColor(Color.BLUE); canvas.drawBitmap(joystick.get_joystickBg(), initx-45, inity-45, null); canvas.drawBitmap(happy, _pointerPosition.x, _pointerPosition.y, null); canvas.drawBitmap(joystick.get_joystick(), _touchingPoint.x - 26, _touchingPoint.y - 26, null); } public void update() { this.onTouchEvent(null); } og= original position. as you can see Im trying to move the joystick, but when I do it stops working correctly, I mean it still works like a joystick but the sprite dosnt move accordingly, if I for example push the joystick down, the sprite moves up, and if I push it up it moves left. can anyone PLEASE help me, I've been stuck here for sooo long and its really frustrating.

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• How do I revert updates/tweaks to get to a usable GUI?

  - by Frankenmartin

  I just installed 12.04 the other day and then ran into trouble upon restarting after installing updates. What I did before the problem occurred: I did not make many changes before this problem occurred. Changes I did make included: Downloading and installing Adobe Flash Player (off topic but: I am under the impression that Java, "C&C" and Shockwave can not be run in Ubuntu. Could anybody verify this?) I also installed gnome-tweak-tool and used it to install several themes. These themes worked well until restarting after the update. Is it possible that one of these themes caused the problem (in combination with the update or because of the restart)? Installed 215 updates from update manager and restarted my system. Current Situation: Unity 3D is unusable since restarting after running updates. When I log in after entering my password the following things happen: the overhead panel disappears and the screen goes black for a minute my wallpaper flashes for a couple seconds but then the screen goes black again after another minute the wallpaper reappears but nothing else does and I am not able to open anything or even right click. after 5 minutes I can finally get a right click menu eventually a box comes up warning about a Compiz failure and asking to let it quit--which I did. Using the right click functionality I was able to create a new folder on the desktop and use this to open a file browser. In doing so I noticed that the downloads I had made were missing (music, image files, etc., even after unpacking several .zip and .rar files) even though I believe that everything should still be there. Any new windows that I create are un-closable/minimizable/movable/etc, because the window bars are missing. I have tried rebooting several times but the results are the same. I was able to browse some off the System Settings windows by clicking on the wallpaper link in the right click menu. In doing so I navigated into the update manager and noticed that updates were selected to be accepted from some "unsupported sources". I do not recall setting these options myself and wonder why these--potentially dangerous--options would be selected by default. Unity 2D is usable but not free of bugs--I stumbled across the ability to log into a Unity 2D session while trying to log into Unity 3D. So far I have only noticed one bug in Unity 2D: the close, minimize and maximize buttons are invisible--however they are still usable despite being invisible. What I need: I'm very new to Linux and Ubuntu and still am in the feeling out stages. As such I will have some trouble answering clarifying questions. I haven't used the terminal yet and would probably not be comfortable using it without very clear instructions. What I do need is to know how I can roll back/remove all those updates so I can use my computer regularly again. I do believe that I could follow step-by-step instructions as long as they are clear and concise if someone knows what my problem is.

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• Use your iPhone or iPod Touch as a Boxee Remote

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Are you a Boxee user looking for a remote control solution? Well, you might not need to look any further than your pocket. The free Boxee Remote App turns your iPhone or iPod Touch into a a simple and easy-to-use Boxee remote. The Boxee Remote App works over WiFi, so there is no need for to buy or install additional hardware on your PC. Plus, you don’t even need to be within the line of sight for it to work. Using the Boxee Remote App Download the free Boxee Remote App from the App Store and install it on your iPhone or iPod Touch. See download link below. Next, make sure you have Boxee running on your PC. Select the Boxee icon to open the App.   The first time you log in you’ll be greeted by an introduction screen that will explain the two modes. Click Continue. When opened in “Button” mode, you’ll be presented with 4 directional buttons, an “OK” button, and a back arrow button that works like the Esc key does in Boxee. Button mode performs just as a normal remote. Touching the directional buttons moves your on screen selection right, left, up, and down. Tap the OK button to open or select an item. To enter “Gesture” mode, tap the Gesture button along the top of the Screen. Gesture mode works similar to a touch pad or trackball on a laptop. You drag the Boxee icon with your thumb or finger across the screen to move around within Boxee. The icon will turn red while being dragged or touched. Simply tap the icon to select.   The Settings button allows you to manually add or delete a host computer, or adjust the sensitivity of the controls.     If you need to enter text, such as enter logon credentials for an App, the on screen keyboard will pop up. While watching a video you’ll have on-screen Stop and Pause buttons along with a volume slider.   The Boxee Remote App is simple and easy to use. As long as you can connect via WiFi, you can use it to control any instance of Boxee running on any computer on your network. Download the Boxee Remote App Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Why Wait? Amazing New Add-on Turns Your iPhone into an iPad! [Comic]Getting Started with BoxeeIntegrate Boxee with Media Center in Windows 7Watch Netflix Instant Movies in BoxeeWin a Free iPod Touch in the How-To Geek Facebook Giveaway! TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Out of band Security Update for Internet Explorer 7 Cool Looking Screensavers for Windows SyncToy syncs Files and Folders across Computers on a Network (or partitions on the same drive) If it were only this easy Classic Cinema Online offers 100’s of OnDemand Movies OutSync will Sync Photos of your Friends on Facebook and Outlook

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• Why I Love the Social Management Platform I Use

  - by Mike Stiles

  Not long ago, I asked the product heads for the various components of the Oracle Social Cloud’s SRM to say what they thought was coolest about their component. And while they did a fine job, it was recently pointed out to me that no one around here uses the platform in a real-world setting more than I do, as I not only blog and podcast my brains out, I also run Oracle Social’s own social properties. Of course I’m pro-Oracle Social’s product. Duh. But if you can get around immediately writing this off as a puff piece, there are real reasons beyond my employment that the Oracle SRM works for me as a community manager. If it didn’t, I could have simply written about something else, like how people love smartphones or something genius like that. Post Grid I like seeing what I want to see. I’m difficult that way. Post grid lets me see all posts for all channels, with custom columns showing me how posts are doing. I can filter the grid by social channel, published, scheduled, draft, suggested, etc. Then there’s a pullout side panel that shows me post details, including engagement analytics. From the pullout, I can preview the post, do a quick edit, a full edit, or (my favorite) copy a post so I can edit it and schedule it for other times so I don’t have to repeat from scratch. I’m not lazy, just time conscious. The Post Creation Environment Given our post volume, I need this to be as easy as it can be. I can highlight which streams I want the post to go out on, edit for the individual streams, maintain a media library that’s easy to upload to and attach from, tag posts, insert links that auto-shorten to an orac.le shortlink, schedule with a nice calendar visual, geo-target, drop photos inline into Twitter, and review each post. Watching My Channels The Engage component of the Oracle SRM brings in and drops into a grid the activity that’s happening on all my channels. I keep this open round-the-clock. Again, I get to see only what I want; social network, stream, unread messages, engagement by how I labeled them, and date range. I can bring up a post with a click, reply, label it, retweet it, assign it, delete it, archive it, etc. So don’t bother trying to be a troll on my channels. Analytics Social publishing and engaging 24/7 would be pretty unrewarding if I couldn’t see how our audience was responding. Frankly, I get more analytics than I know what to do with (I’m a content creator, not a data analyst). But I do know what numbers I care about, and they’re available by channel, date range, and campaigns. I’m seeing fan count, sources and demographics. I’m seeing engagement, what kinds of posts are getting engagement, and top engagers. I’m seeing my reach, both organic and paid. I’m seeing how individual posts performed in terms of engagement and virality, and posting time/date insight. Have I covered all the value propositions? I’ve covered pathetically few of them. It would be impossible in blog length to give shout-outs to the vast number of features and functionalities. From organizing teams and managing permissions with Workflow to the powerful ability to monitor topics (and your competition) across the web in Listen, it’s a major, and increasingly necessary, weapon in your social marketing arsenal. The life of a Community Manager is not for everybody. So if the Oracle SRM can actually make a Community Manager’s life easier, what’s not to love? I invite you to take a look at and participate in our Oracle Social Cloud social channels! Facebook Twitter YouTube Google Plus LinkedIn Daily Podcast on iHeartRadio @mikestiles @oraclesocial Photo: freeimages.com

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