nightly build - Page 631

What developer conferences are you going to this year?

- by mbcrump

This short list is what I consider to be the “cream-of-the-crop” in developer conferences. This is also a list of the conferences that I plan on attending in 2011. If you feel your conference is just as good, then shoot me an email at [michael[at]michaelcrump[dot]net, and if possible I will check it out. In-Person Event Las Vegas on April 18th-22nd, 2011 Redmond on October 17th-21st, 2011 Orlando on December 5th-9th, 2011 Visual Studio Live – I attended this event in November of last year and blogged about my experience. I am also planning on going back to the Orlando session in December of this year. So what did I like the most about this event? Being able to interact one-on-one with a majority of the speakers. If you read my blog post then you will see a list of the speakers that I met up with. I also made a lot of great connections with other professional developers all over the world. They are having an event in Las Vegas on April 18th-22nd. I noticed at this event that they have added a new track on mobile. Being a big fan of mobile, I feel that this is a great move. They also have a great selection for Silverlight Developers including Billy Hollis and Rocky Lhotka. For the full lineup of conference tracks, sessions and speakers visit http://bit.ly/VSLiveTrks. If you are interested in this then you can register here by February 16th. I must add that you can save $300 bucks by getting the early-bird special. Virtual Conference SSWUG (DBTechCon) - holds the largest virtual conference in the information technology industry. It is also special to me because they selected a majority of my Silverlight content for the April conference. No traveling fees and all of the sessions are recorded so you can watch them on-demand for $189 bucks (early-bird special). For the entire speaker list then click here. The session list has also been published. If you are interested in this then you can register here. In-Person Event Knoxville, TN on June 3rd/4th 2011. Codestock.org – If you live in the South then you have heard of CodeStock. To my knowledge, they have only had 3 events so far and they were a huge success. It was such a success that after the last event, everyone was telling me how good it was and how much they enjoyed it. They currently have a call for speakers going on right now, so if you have sessions then be sure to submit yours. So, what makes them stand out? Well for starters Michael Neal (organizer) developed an open API so conference attendees could build their own apps for the sessions. They also encouraged their speakers to go to other sessions instead of stay in a “speaker-room”. Another cool feature is that they are uploading videos from the conference so everyone can benefit. They are currently looking for sponsorship, so help out if you can. In-Person Event Redmond, WA on October 28/29 2011 *NOT 100% SURE AT THIS POINT* PDC 11 – OK, so the logo should be pdc11 but its not out yet. This event is located on Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, WA. It is probably one of the most well known conferences for developers to attend. One of the big perks from this event is that you typically come away with free stuff. In 2010 they gave away Windows 7 Phones. I remember years earlier they gave away laptops. This of course isn’t the only reason to go, you may get to tour the Microsoft campus. Since pdc is a huge event, you can view all the events for free. Mike Taulty created a nice Silverlight application that consumes the OData feed. You can download it here. If everything goes as planned, I will be at all of these events. If you plan on going then send me a tweet and we will do lunch or dinner. I love meeting new developers and talking .net. Subscribe to my feed

Read the article

ADF Business Components

- by Arda Eralp

ADF Business Components and JDeveloper simplify the development, delivery, and customization of business applications for the Java EE platform. With ADF Business Components, developers aren't required to write the application infrastructure code required by the typical Java EE application to: Connect to the database Retrieve data Lock database records Manage transactions ADF Business Components addresses these tasks through its library of reusable software components and through the supporting design time facilities in JDeveloper. Most importantly, developers save time using ADF Business Components since the JDeveloper design time makes typical development tasks entirely declarative. In particular, JDeveloper supports declarative development with ADF Business Components to: Author and test business logic in components which automatically integrate with databases Reuse business logic through multiple SQL-based views of data, supporting different application tasks Access and update the views from browser, desktop, mobile, and web service clients Customize application functionality in layers without requiring modification of the delivered application The goal of ADF Business Components is to make the business services developer more productive. ADF Business Components provides a foundation of Java classes that allow your business-tier application components to leverage the functionality provided in the following areas: Simplifying Data Access Design a data model for client displays, including only necessary data Include master-detail hierarchies of any complexity as part of the data model Implement end-user Query-by-Example data filtering without code Automatically coordinate data model changes with business services layer Automatically validate and save any changes to the database Enforcing Business Domain Validation and Business Logic Declaratively enforce required fields, primary key uniqueness, data precision-scale, and foreign key references Easily capture and enforce both simple and complex business rules, programmatically or declaratively, with multilevel validation support Navigate relationships between business domain objects and enforce constraints related to compound components Supporting Sophisticated UIs with Multipage Units of Work Automatically reflect changes made by business service application logic in the user interface Retrieve reference information from related tables, and automatically maintain the information when the user changes foreign-key values Simplify multistep web-based business transactions with automatic web-tier state management Handle images, video, sound, and documents without having to use code Synchronize pending data changes across multiple views of data Consistently apply prompts, tooltips, format masks, and error messages in any application Define custom metadata for any business components to support metadata-driven user interface or application functionality Add dynamic attributes at runtime to simplify per-row state management Implementing High-Performance Service-Oriented Architecture Support highly functional web service interfaces for business integration without writing code Enforce best-practice interface-based programming style Simplify application security with automatic JAAS integration and audit maintenance "Write once, run anywhere": use the same business service as plain Java class, EJB session bean, or web service Streamlining Application Customization Extend component functionality after delivery without modifying source code Globally substitute delivered components with extended ones without modifying the application ADF Business Components implements the business service through the following set of cooperating components: Entity object An entity object represents a row in a database table and simplifies modifying its data by handling all data manipulation language (DML) operations for you. These are basically your 1 to 1 representation of a database table. Each table in the database will have 1 and only 1 EO. The EO contains the mapping between columns and attributes. EO's also contain the business logic and validation. These are you core data services. They are responsible for updating, inserting and deleting records. The Attributes tab displays the actual mapping between attributes and columns, the mapping has following fields: Name : contains the name of the attribute we expose in our data model. Type : defines the data type of the attribute in our application. Column : specifies the column to which we want to map the attribute with Column Type : contains the type of the column in the database View object A view object represents a SQL query. You use the full power of the familiar SQL language to join, filter, sort, and aggregate data into exactly the shape required by the end-user task. The attributes in the View Objects are actually coming from the Entity Object. In the end the VO will generate a query but you basically build a VO by selecting which EO need to participate in the VO and which attributes of those EO you want to use. That's why you have the Entity Usage column so you can see the relation between VO and EO. In the query tab you can clearly see the query that will be generated for the VO. At this stage we don't need it and just use it for information purpose. In later stages we might use it. Application module An application module is the controller of your data layer. It is responsible for keeping hold of the transaction. It exposes the data model to the view layer. You expose the VO's through the Application Module. This is the abstraction of your data layer which you want to show to the outside word.It defines an updatable data model and top-level procedures and functions (called service methods) related to a logical unit of work related to an end-user task. While the base components handle all the common cases through built-in behavior, customization is always possible and the default behavior provided by the base components can be easily overridden or augmented. When you create EO's, a foreign key will be translated into an association in our model. It defines the type of relation and who is the master and child as well as how the visibility of the association looks like. A similar concept exists to identify relations between view objects. These are called view links. These are almost identical as association except that a view link is based upon attributes defined in the view object. It can also be based upon an association. Here's a short summary: Entity Objects: representations of tables Association: Relations between EO's. Representations of foreign keys View Objects: Logical model View Links: Relationships between view objects Application Model: interface to your application

Read the article

Rebuilding CoasterBuzz, Part II: Hot data objects

- by Jeff

This is the second post, originally from my personal blog, in a series about rebuilding one of my Web sites, which has been around for 12 years. More: Part I: Evolution, and death to WCF After the rush to get moving on stuff, I temporarily lost interest. I went almost two weeks without touching the project, in part because the next thing on my backlog was doing up a bunch of administrative pages. So boring. Unfortunately, because most of the site's content is user-generated, you need some facilities for editing data. CoasterBuzz has a database full of amusement parks and roller coasters. The entities enjoy the relationships that you would expect, though they're further defined by "instances" of a coaster, to define one that has moved between parks as one, with different names and operational dates. And of course, there are pictures and news items, too. It's not horribly complex, except when you have to account for a name change and display just the newest name. In all previous versions, data access was straight SQL. As so much of the old code was rooted in 2003, with some changes in 2008, there wasn't much in the way of ORM frameworks going on then. Let me rephrase that, I mostly wasn't interested in ORM's. Since that time, I used a little LINQ to SQL in some projects, and a whole bunch of nHibernate while at Microsoft. Through all of that experience, I have to admit that these frameworks are often a bigger pain in the ass than not. They're great for basic crud operations, but when you start having all kinds of exotic relationships, they get difficult, and generate all kinds of weird SQL under the covers. The black box can quickly turn into a black hole. Sometimes you end up having to build all kinds of new expertise to do things "right" with a framework. Still, despite my reservations, I used the newer version of Entity Framework, with the "code first" modeling, in a science project and I really liked it. Since it's just a right-click away with NuGet, I figured I'd give it a shot here. My initial effort was spent defining the context class, which requires a bit of work because I deviate quite a bit from the conventions that EF uses, starting with table names. Then throw some partial querying of certain tables (where you'll find image data), and you're splitting tables across several objects (navigation properties). I won't go into the details, because these are all things that are well documented around the Internet, but there was a minor learning curve there. The basics of reading data using EF are fantastic. For example, a roller coaster object has a park associated with it, as well as a number of instances (if it was ever relocated), and there also might be a big banner image for it. This is stupid easy to use because it takes one line of code in your repository class, and by the time you pass it to the view, you have a rich object graph that has everything you need to display stuff. Likewise, editing simple data is also, well, simple. For this goodness, thank the ASP.NET MVC framework. The UpdateModel() method on the controllers is very elegant. Remember the old days of assigning all kinds of properties to objects in your Webforms code-behind? What a time consuming mess that used to be. Even if you're not using an ORM tool, having hydrated objects come off the wire is such a time saver. Not everything is easy, though. When you have to persist a complex graph of objects, particularly if they were composed in the user interface with all kinds of AJAX elements and list boxes, it's not just a simple matter of submitting the form. There were a few instances where I ended up going back to "old-fashioned" SQL just in the interest of time. It's not that I couldn't do what I needed with EF, it's just that the efficiency, both my own and that of the generated SQL, wasn't good. Since EF context objects expose a database connection object, you can use that to do the old school ADO.NET stuff you've done for a decade. Using various extension methods from POP Forums' data project, it was a breeze. You just have to stick to your decision, in this case. When you start messing with SQL directly, you can't go back in the same code to messing with entities because EF doesn't know what you're changing. Not really a big deal. There are a number of take-aways from using EF. The first is that you write a lot less code, which has always been a desired outcome of ORM's. The other lesson, and I particularly learned this the hard way working on the MSDN forums back in the day, is that trying to retrofit an ORM framework into an existing schema isn't fun at all. The CoasterBuzz database isn't bad, but there are design decisions I'd make differently if I were starting from scratch. Now that I have some of this stuff done, I feel like I can start to move on to the more interesting things on the backlog. There's a lot to do, but at least it's fun stuff, and not more forms that will be used infrequently.

Read the article

BizTalk 2009 - Custom Functoid Wizard

- by StuartBrierley

When creating BizTalk maps you may find that there are times when you need perform tasks that the standard functoids do not cover. At other times you may find yourself reapeating a pattern of standard functoids over and over again, adding visual complexity to an otherwise simple process. In these cases you may find it preferable to create your own custom functoids. In the past I have created a number of custom functoids from scratch, but recently I decided to try out the Custom Functoid Wizard for BizTalk 2009. After downloading and installing the wizard you should start Visual Studio and select to create a new BizTalk Server Functoid Project. Following the splash screen you will be presented with the General Properties screen, where you can set the classname, namespace, assembly name and strong name key file. The next screen is the first set of properties for the functoid. First of all is the fuctoid ID; this must be a value above 6000. You should also then set the name, tooltip and description of the functoid. The name will appear in the visual studio toolbox and the tooltip on hover over in the toolbox. The descrition will be shown when you configure the functoid inputs when using it in a map; as such it should provide a decent level of information to allow the functoid to be used. Next you must set the category, exception mesage, icon and implementation language. The category will affect the positioning of the functoid within the toolbox and also some of the behaviours of the functoid. We must then define the parameters and connections for our new functoid. Here you can define the names and types of your input parameters along with the minimum and maximum number of input connections. You will also need to define the types of connections accepted and the output type of the functoid. Finally you can click finish and your custom functoid project will be created. The results of this process can be seen in the solution explorer, where you will see that a project, functoid class file and a resource file have been created for you. If you open the class file you will see that the following code has been created for you: The "base" function sets all the properties that you previsouly detailed in the custom functoid wizard. public TestFunctoids():base() { int functoidID; // This has to be a number greater than 6000 functoidID = System.Convert.ToInt32(resmgr.GetString("FunctoidId")); this.ID = functoidID; // Set Resource strings, bitmaps SetupResourceAssembly(ResourceName, Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly()); SetName("FunctoidName"); SetTooltip("FunctoidToolTip"); SetDescription("FunctoidDescription"); SetBitmap("FunctoidBitmap"); // Minimum and maximum parameters that the functoid accepts this.SetMinParams(2); this.SetMaxParams(2); /// Function name that needs to be called when this Functoid is invoked. /// Put this in GAC. SetExternalFunctionName(GetType().Assembly.FullName, "MyCompany.BizTalk.Functoids.TestFuntoids.TestFunctoids", "Execute"); // Category for this functoid. this.Category = FunctoidCategory.String; // Input and output Connection type this.OutputConnectionType = ConnectionType.AllExceptRecord; AddInputConnectionType(ConnectionType.AllExceptRecord); } The "Execute" function provides a skeleton function that contains the code to be executed by your new functoid. The inputs and outputs should match those you defined in the Custom Functoid Wizard. public System.Int32 Execute(System.Int32 Cool) { ResourceManager resmgr = new ResourceManager(ResourceName, Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly()); try { // TODO: Implement Functoid Logic } catch (Exception e) { throw new Exception(resmgr.GetString("FunctoidException"), e); } } Opening the resource file you will see some of the various string values that you defined in the Custom Functoid Wizard - Name, Tooltip, Description and Exception. You can also select to look at the image resources. This will display the embedded icon image for the functoid. To change this right click the icon and select "Import from File". Once you have completed the skeleton code you can then look at trying out your functoid. To do this you will need to build the project, copy the compiled DLL to C:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009\Developer Tools\Mapper Extensions and then refresh the toolbox in visual studio.

Read the article

Synergy - easy share of keyboard and mouse between multiple computers

Did you ever have the urge to share one set of keyboard and mouse between multiple machines? If so, please read on... Using multiple machines Honestly, as a software craftsman it is my daily business to run multiple machines - either physical or virtual - to be able to solve my customers' requirements. Recent hardware equipment allows this very easily. For laptops it's a no-brainer to attach a second or even a third screen in order to extend your native display. This works quite handy and in my case I used to attached two additional screens - one via HD15 connector, the other via HDMI. But... as it's a laptop and therefore a mobile unit there are slight restrictions. Detaching and re-attaching all cables when changing locations is one of them but hardware limitations, too. After all, it's a laptop and not a workstation. I guess, that anyone working in IT (or ICT) has more than one machine at their workplace or their home office and at least I find it quite annoying to have multiple sets of keyboard and mouse conquering my remaining space on my desk. Despite the ugly looks of all those cables and whatsoever 'chaos of distraction' I prefer a more clean solution and working environment. This allows me to actually focus on my work and tasks to do rather than to worry about choosing the right combination of keyboard/mouse. My current workplace is a patch work of various pieces of hardware (approx. 2-3 years): DIY desktop on Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit, Core2 Duo (E7400, 2.8GHz), 4GB RAM, 2x 250GB HDD, nVidia GPU 512MB Dell Inspiron 1525 on Windows 8 64-bit, 4GB RAM, 200GB HDD HP Compaq 6720s on Windows Vista 32-bit, Core2 Duo (T5670, 1.8GHz), 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD Mac mini on Mac OS X 10.7, Core i5 (2.3 GHz), 2GB RAM, 500GB HDD I know... Not the latest and greatest but a decent combination to work with. New system(s) is/are already on the shopping list but I live in the 'wrong' country to buy computer hardware. So, the next trip abroad will provide me with some new stuff. Using multiple operating systems The list of hardware above already names different operating systems, and actually I have only one preference: Linux. But still my job as a software craftsman for Visual FoxPro and .NET development requires other OSes, too. Not a big deal, it's just like this. Additionally to those physical machines, there are a bunch of virtual machines around. Most of them running either Windows XP or Windows 7. Since years I have the practice that each development for one customer is isolated into its own virtual machine and environment. This keeps it clean and version-safe. But as you can easily imagine with that setup there are a couple of constraints referring to keyboard and mouse. Usually, those systems require their own pieces of hardware attached. As stated, I don't like clutter on my desk's surface, so a cross-platform solution has to come in here. In the past, I tried it with various applications, hardware or network protocols like X11, RDP, NX, TeamViewer, RAdmin, KVM switch, etc. but the problem in this case is that they either allow you to remotely connect to the other system or exclusively 'bind' your peripherals to the active system. Not optimal after all. Synergy to the rescue Quote from their website: "Synergy lets you easily share your mouse and keyboard between multiple computers on your desk, and it's Free and Open Source. Just move your mouse off the edge of one computer's screen on to another. You can even share all of your clipboards. All you need is a network connection. Synergy is cross-platform (works on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux)." Yep, that's it! All I need for my setup here... Actually, I couldn't believe it myself that I didn't stumble over synergy earlier but 'Get over it' and there we go. And despite the fact that it is Open Source, no, it's also for free. Donations for the developers are very welcome and recently they introduced Synergy Premium. A possibility to buy so-called premium votes that can be used to put more weight / importance on specific issues or bugs that you would like the developers to look into. Installation and configuration Simply download the installation packages for your systems of choice, run the installer and enter some minor information about your network setup. I chose my desktop machine for the role of the Synergy server and configured my screen setup as follows: The screen setup allows you currently to build or connect up to 15 machines. The number of screens can be higher as those machine might have multiple screens physically attached. Synergy takes this into the overall calculations and simply works as expected. I tried it for fun with a second monitor each connected to both laptops to have a total number of 6 active screens. No flaws after all - stunning! All the other machines are configured as clients like so: Side note: The screenshot was taken on Windows 8 and pasted via clipboard into Gimp running on Ubuntu. Resume Synergy is now definitely in my box of tools for my daily work, and amongst the first pieces of software I install after the operating system. It just simplifies my life and cleans my desk. Never again without Synergy!Now, only waiting for an Android version to integrate my Galaxy Tab 10.1, too. ;-) Please, check out that superb product and enjoy sharing one keyboard, one mouse and one clipboard between your various machines and operating systems.

Read the article

What do the participants say about the Open Day in South Africa?

- by Maria Sandu

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 On the 26th of September, a group of students who were specifically selected to attend an Open day at Oracle South Africa, joined us at our offices in Woodmead, Johannesburg. The Conference room was filled with inquisitive minds. What we had in store for them was a detailed presentation about Oracle which was delivered by Zuko - Cluster Leader: Tech GB South Africa. The student’s many questions were all answered especially when we started addressing the opportunities we have and detailed information on our Graduate Programme. Our employees then came to talk about their experience. This allowed all the students to have an integrated learning experience. By inviting the students to walk around our Oracle Offices allowed them to see, talk, experience a bit of the culture and ask more questions. Here is some of the feedback from the attendees: Maxwell Moloi: “The open day truly served its purpose and exceeded expectations in the sense that I got to find out more about Oracle and all the different opportunities it has to offer. The fact that Oracle supplies a full solution to a customer and not just part of it and how the company manages to setup professional development for their employees is what entices me to want to join the rapidly growing team of Oracle.” Nqobile Mabaso: “I found the open day to be quite informative and enlightening because coming from a marketing background I could apply the knowledge I got from varsity to the Company I was able to point out what they do as part of their corporate social responsibility (Oracle recently partnered with the department of education to build a school), how Oracle emphasizes on relationship building because they know they sell to people and not companies and how they offer the full stack of solutions which gives them a competitive advantage over their competitors.” Nondumiso Mvelase: “The Open Day was a wonderful experience for me especially because I have never been part of an Open Day before, so it was absolutely amazing for me. It gave me a good idea of how it is to be part of Oracle. We were served with lovely breakfast and lunch which I enjoyed. I wish the Open Day went on for a whole week. Seeing and hearing from 2013 Graduates, telling us about their experience within Oracle was very inspiring to me. They were encouraging us to work hard if we ever got the opportunity they had. After hearing this from them I will definitely not take it for granted.” Itumeleng Moraka: “Before I walked into the Oracle offices all that was in my mind was databases and cloud storage. I was then surrounded by passionate, enthusiastic and welcoming employees. I came across a positive energy within the multinational company. I realized that Oracle is not a company that operates in survival mode. This may sound idealistic, but they operate in a non-traditional way investing more into innovation, they stay focused on what matters most about where technology is going and at the same time they are not losing sight of how their products make a difference in the world.” For more information on how to be part of the Oracle Graduate Programme please follow us on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/CampusAtOracle /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

Read the article

Extending Expression Blend 4 & Blend for Visual Studio 2012

- by Chris Skardon

Just getting this off the bat, I presume this will also work for Blend 5, but I can’t confirm it… Anyhews, I imagine you’re here because you want to know how to create an addin for Blend, so let’s jump right in there! First, and foremost, we’re going to need to ensure our development environment has the right setup, so the checklist: Visual Studio 2012 Blend for Visual Studio 2012 OK, let’s create a new project (class library, .NET 4.5): Hello.Extension The ‘.Extension’ bit is very very important. The addin will not work unless it is named in this way. You can put whatever you want at the front, but it has to have the extension bit. OK, so now we have a solution with one project. To this project we need to add references to the following things: Microsoft.Expression.Extensibility (from c:\program files\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Blend\ -- x86 folder if you are on an x64 windows install) Microsoft.Expression.Framework (same location as above) PresentationCore PresentationFramework WindowsBase System.ComponentModel.Composition Got them? ACE. Let’s now add a project to contain our control, so, create a new WPF Application project, cunningly named something like ‘Hello.Control’… (I’m creating a WPF application here, because I’m too lazy to dig up the correct references, and this will add all the ones I need ) Once that is created, delete the App.xaml and MainWindow.xaml files, we won’t be needing them. You will also need to change the properties of the project itself, so it is only a class library. Once that is done, let’s add a new UserControl, which will be this: <UserControl x:Class="Hello.Control.HelloControl" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006" xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008" mc:Ignorable="d" d:DesignHeight="300" d:DesignWidth="300"> <Grid> <TextBlock Text="HELLO!!!"/> </Grid> </UserControl> Impressive eh? Now, let’s reference the WPF project from the Extension library. All that’s left now is to code up our extension… So, add a class to the Extension project (name wise doesn’t matter), and make it implement the IPackage interface from the Microsoft.Expression.Extensibility library: public class HelloExtension : IPackage { /**/ } We’ll implement the two methods we need to: public class HelloExtension : IPackage { public void Load(IServices services) { } public void Unload() { } } We’re only really concerned about the Load method in this case, as let’s face it, the extension we have doesn’t need to do a lot to bog off. The interesting thing about the Load method is that it receives an IServices instance. This allows us to get access to all the services that Expression provides, in this case we’re interested in one in particular, the ‘IWindowService’ So, let’s get that bad boy… private IWindowService _windowService; public void Load(IServices services) { _windowService = services.GetService<IWindowService>(); } Nailed it… But why? The WindowService allows us to register our UserControl with Blend, which in turn allows people to activate and see it, which is a big plus point. So, let’s do that… We’ll create an ‘Initialize’ method to create our new control, and add it to the WindowService: private HelloControl _helloControl; public void Initialize() { _helloControl = new HelloControl(); if (_windowService.PaletteRegistry["HelloPanel"] == null) _windowService.RegisterPalette("HelloPanel", _helloControl, "Hello Window"); } First we check that we’re not already registered, and if we’re not we register, the first argument is the identifier used by the service to, well, identify your extension. The second argument is the actual control, the third argument is the name that people will see in the ‘Windows’ menu of Blend itself (so important note here – don’t put anything embarrassing or (need I say it?) sweary…) There are only two things to do now - Call ‘Initialize()’ from our Load method, and Export the class This is easy money – add [Export(typeof(IPackage))] to the top of our class… The full code will (should) look like this: [Export(typeof (IPackage))] public class HelloExtension : IPackage { private HelloControl _helloControl; private IWindowService _windowService; public void Load(IServices services) { _windowService = services.GetService<IWindowService>(); Initialize(); } public void Unload() { } public void Initialize() { _helloControl = new HelloControl(); if (_windowService.PaletteRegistry["HelloControl"] == null) _windowService.RegisterPalette("HelloControl", _helloControl, "Hello Window"); } } If you build this and copy it to your ‘Extensions’ folder in Blend (c:\program files\microsoft visual studio 11.0\blend\) and start Blend, you should see ‘Hello Window’ listed in the Window menu: That as they say is it!

Read the article

Adjusting server-side tickrate dynamically

- by Stuart Blackler

I know nothing of game development/this site, so I apologise if this is completely foobar. Today I experimented with building a small game loop for a network game (think MW3, CSGO etc). I was wondering why they do not build in automatic rate adjustment based on server performance? Would it affect the client that much if the client knew this frame is based on this tickrate? Has anyone attempted this before? Here is what my noobish C++ brain came up with earlier. It will improve the tickrate if it has been stable for x ticks. If it "lags", the tickrate will be reduced down by y amount: // GameEngine.cpp : Defines the entry point for the console application. // #ifdef WIN32 #include <Windows.h> #else #include <sys/time.h> #include <ctime> #endif #include<iostream> #include <dos.h> #include "stdafx.h" using namespace std; UINT64 GetTimeInMs() { #ifdef WIN32 /* Windows */ FILETIME ft; LARGE_INTEGER li; /* Get the amount of 100 nano seconds intervals elapsed since January 1, 1601 (UTC) and copy it * to a LARGE_INTEGER structure. */ GetSystemTimeAsFileTime(&ft); li.LowPart = ft.dwLowDateTime; li.HighPart = ft.dwHighDateTime; UINT64 ret = li.QuadPart; ret -= 116444736000000000LL; /* Convert from file time to UNIX epoch time. */ ret /= 10000; /* From 100 nano seconds (10^-7) to 1 millisecond (10^-3) intervals */ return ret; #else /* Linux */ struct timeval tv; gettimeofday(&tv, NULL); uint64 ret = tv.tv_usec; /* Convert from micro seconds (10^-6) to milliseconds (10^-3) */ ret /= 1000; /* Adds the seconds (10^0) after converting them to milliseconds (10^-3) */ ret += (tv.tv_sec * 1000); return ret; #endif } int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[]) { int sv_tickrate_max = 1000; // The maximum amount of ticks per second int sv_tickrate_min = 100; // The minimum amount of ticks per second int sv_tickrate_adjust = 10; // How much to de/increment the tickrate by int sv_tickrate_stable_before_increment = 1000; // How many stable ticks before we increase the tickrate again int sys_tickrate_current = sv_tickrate_max; // Always start at the highest possible tickrate for the best performance int counter_stable_ticks = 0; // How many ticks we have not lagged for UINT64 __startTime = GetTimeInMs(); int ticks = 100000; while(ticks > 0) { int maxTimeInMs = 1000 / sys_tickrate_current; UINT64 _startTime = GetTimeInMs(); // Long code here... cout << "."; UINT64 _timeTaken = GetTimeInMs() - _startTime; if(_timeTaken < maxTimeInMs) { Sleep(maxTimeInMs - _timeTaken); counter_stable_ticks++; if(counter_stable_ticks >= sv_tickrate_stable_before_increment) { // reset the stable # ticks counter counter_stable_ticks = 0; // make sure that we don't go over the maximum tickrate if(sys_tickrate_current + sv_tickrate_adjust <= sv_tickrate_max) { sys_tickrate_current += sv_tickrate_adjust; // let me know in console #DEBUG cout << endl << "Improving tickrate. New tickrate: " << sys_tickrate_current << endl; } } } else if(_timeTaken > maxTimeInMs) { cout << endl; if((sys_tickrate_current - sv_tickrate_adjust) > sv_tickrate_min) { sys_tickrate_current -= sv_tickrate_adjust; } else { if(sys_tickrate_current == sv_tickrate_min) { cout << "Please reduce sv_tickrate_min..." << endl; } else{ sys_tickrate_current = sv_tickrate_min; } } // let me know in console #DEBUG cout << "The server has lag. Reduced tickrate to: " << sys_tickrate_current << endl; } ticks--; } UINT64 __timeTaken = GetTimeInMs() - __startTime; cout << endl << endl << "Total time in ms: " << __timeTaken; cout << endl << "Ending tickrate: " << sys_tickrate_current; char test; cin >> test; return 0; }

Read the article

Building Enterprise Smartphone App – Part 2: Platforms and Features

- by Tim Murphy

This is part 2 in a series of posts based on a talk I gave recently at the Chicago Information Technology Architects Group. Feel free to leave feedback. In the previous post I discussed what reasons a company might have for creating a smartphone application. In this installment I will cover some of history and state of the different platforms as well as features that can be leveraged for building enterprise smartphone applications. Platforms Before you start choosing a platform to develop your solutions on it is good to understand how we got here and what features you can leverage. History To my memory we owe all of this to a product called the Apple Newton that came out in 1987. It was the first PDA and back then I was much more of an Apple fan. I was very impressed with this device even though it never really went anywhere. The Palm Pilot by US Robotics was the next major advancement in PDA. It had a simple short hand window that allowed for quick stylus entry.. Later, Windows CE came out and started the broadening of the PDA market. After that it was the Palm and CE operating systems that started showing up on cell phones and for some time these were the two dominant operating systems that were distributed with devices from multiple hardware vendors. Current The iPhone was the first smartphone to take away the stylus and give us a multi-touch interface. It was a revolution in usability and really changed the attractiveness of smartphones for the general public. This brought us to the beginning of the current state of the market with the concept of an online store that makes it easy for customers to get new features and functionality on demand. With Android, Google made this more than a one horse race. Not only did they come to compete, their low cost actually made them the leading OS. Of course what made Android so attractive also is its major fault. It is so open that it has been a target for malware which leaves consumers exposed. Fortunately for Google though, most consumers aren’t aware of the threat that they are under. Although Microsoft had put out one of the first smart phone operating systems with CE it had to play catch up and finally came out with the Windows Phone. They have gone for a market approach between those of iOS and Android. They support multiple hardware vendors like Google, but they kept a certification process for applications that is similar to Apple. They also created a user interface that was different enough to give it a clear separation from the other two platforms. The result of all this is hundreds of millions of smartphones being sold monthly across all three platforms giving us a wide range of choices and challenges when it comes to developing solutions. Features So what are the features that make these devices flexible enough be considered for use in the enterprise? The biggest advantage of today's devices is network connectivity. The ability to access information from multiple sources at a moment’s notice is critical for businesses. Add to that the ability to communicate over a variety of text, voice and video modes and we have a powerful starting point. Every smartphone has a cameras and they are not just useful for posting to Instagram. We are seeing more applications such as Bing vision that allow us to scan just about any printed code or text to find information. These capabilities have been made available to developers in the form of standard libraries for reading barcodes of just about an flavor and optical character recognition (OCR) interpretation. Bluetooth give us the ability to communicate with multiple devices. Whether these are headsets, keyboard or printers the wireless communication capabilities are just starting to evolve. The more these wireless communication protocols grow, the more opportunities we will see to transfer data between users and a variety of devices. Local storage of information that can be called up even when the device cannot reach the network is the other big capability. This give users the ability to work offline as well and transmit information when connections are restored. These are the tools that we have to work with to build applications that can be leveraged to gain a competitive advantage for companies that implement them. Coming Up In the third installment I will cover key concerns that you face when building enterprise smartphone apps. del.icio.us Tags: smartphones,enterprise smartphone Apps,architecture,iOS,Android,Windows Phone

Read the article

Business Case for investing time developing Stubs and BizUnit Tests

- by charlie.mott

I was recently in a position where I had to justify why effort should be spent developing Stubbed Integration Tests for BizTalk solutions. These tests are usually developed using the BizUnit framework. I assumed that most seasoned BizTalk developers would consider this best practice. Even though Microsoft suggest use of BizUnit on MSDN, I've not found a single site listing the justifications for investing time writing stubs and BizUnit tests. Stubs Stubs should be developed to isolate your development team from external dependencies. This is described by Michael Stephenson here. Failing to do this can result in the following problems: In contract-first scenarios, the external system interface will have been defined. But the interface may not have been setup or even developed yet for the BizTalk developers to work with. By the time you open the target location to see the data BizTalk has sent, it may have been swept away. If you are relying on the UI of the target system to see the data BizTalk has sent, what do you do if it fails to arrive? It may take time for the data to be processed or it may be scheduled to be processed later. Learning how to use the source\target systems and investigations into where things go wrong in these systems will slow down the BizTalk development effort. By the time the data is visible in a UI it may have undergone further transformations. In larger development teams working together, do you all use the same source and target instances. How do you know which data was created by whose tests? How do you know which event log error message are whose? Another developer may have “cleaned up” your data. It is harder to write BizUnit tests that clean up the data\logs after each test run. What if your B2B partners' source or target system cannot support the sort of testing you want to do. They may not even have a development or test instance that you can work with. Their single test instance may be used by the SIT\UAT teams. There may be licencing costs of setting up an instances of the external system. The stubs I like to use are generic stubs that can accept\return any message type. Usually I need to create one per protocol. They should be driven by BizUnit steps to: validates the data received; and select a response messages (or error response). Once built, they can be re-used for many integration tests and from project to project. I’m not saying that developers should never test against a real instance. Every so often, you still need to connect to real developer or test instances of the source and target endpoints\services. The interface developers may ask you to send them some data to see if everything still works. Or you might want some messages sent to BizTalk to get confidence that everything still works beyond BizTalk. Tests Automated “Stubbed Integration Tests” are usually built using the BizUnit framework. These facilitate testing of the entire integration process from source stub to target stub. It will ensure that all of the BizTalk components are configured together correctly to meet all the requirements. More fine grained unit testing of individual BizTalk components is still encouraged. But BizUnit provides much the easiest way to test some components types (e.g. Orchestrations). Using BizUnit with the Behaviour Driven Development approach described by Mike Stephenson delivers the following benefits: source: http://biztalkbddsample.codeplex.com – Video 1. Requirements can be easily defined using Given/When/Then Requirements are close to the code so easier to manage as features and scenarios Requirements are defined in domain language The feature files can be used as part of the documentation The documentation is accurate to the build of code and can be published with a release The scenarios are effective to document the scenarios and are not over excessive The scenarios are maintained with the code There’s an abstraction between the intention and implementation of tests making them easier to understand The requirements drive the testing These same tests can also be used to drive load testing as described here. If you don't do this ... If you don't follow the above “Stubbed Integration Tests” approach, the developer will need to manually trigger the tests. This has the following risks: Developers are unlikely to check all the scenarios each time and all the expected conditions each time. After the developer leaves, these manual test steps may be lost. What test scenarios are there? What test messages did they use for each scenario? There is no mechanism to prove adequate test coverage. A test team may attempt to automate integration test scenarios in a test environment through the triggering of tests from a source system UI. If this is a replacement for BizUnit tests, then this carries the following risks: It moves the tests downstream, so problems will be found later in the process. Testers may not check all the expected conditions within the BizTalk infrastructure such as: event logs, suspended messages, etc. These automated tests may also get in the way of manual tests run on these environments.

Read the article

Why Executives Need Enterprise Project Portfolio Management: 3 Key Considerations to Drive Value Across the Organization

- by Melissa Centurio Lopes

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Cambria","serif";} By: Guy Barlow, Oracle Primavera Industry Strategy Director Over the last few years there has been a tremendous shift – some would say tectonic in nature – that has brought project management to the forefront of executive attention. Many factors have been driving this growing awareness, most notably, the global financial crisis, heightened regulatory environments and a need to more effectively operationalize corporate strategy. Executives in India are no exception. In fact, given the phenomenal rate of progress of the country, top of mind for all executives (whether in finance, operations, IT, etc.) is the need to build capacity, ramp-up production and ensure that the right resources are in place to capture growth opportunities. This applies across all industries from asset-intensive – like oil & gas, utilities and mining – to traditional manufacturing and the public sector, including services-based sectors such as the financial, telecom and life sciences segments are also part of the mix. However, compounding matters is a complex, interplay between projects – big and small, complex and simple – as companies expand and grow both domestically and internationally. So, having a standardized, enterprise wide solution for project portfolio management is natural. Failing to do so is akin to having two ERP systems, one to manage “large” invoices and one to manage “small” invoices. It makes no sense and provides no enterprise wide visibility. Therefore, it is imperative for executives to understand the full range of their business commitments, the benefit to the company, current performance and associated course corrections if needed. Irrespective of industry and regardless of the use case (e.g., building a power plant, launching a new financial service or developing a new automobile) company leaders need to approach the value of enterprise project portfolio management via 3 critical areas: Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Cambria","serif";} 1. Greater Financial Discipline – Improve financial rigor and results through better governance and control is an imperative given today’s financial uncertainty and greater investment scrutiny. For example, as India plans a US$1 trillion investment in the country’s infrastructure how do companies ensure costs are managed? How do you control cash flow? Can you easily report this to stakeholders? 2. Improved Operational Excellence – Increase efficiency and reduce costs through robust collaboration and integration. Upwards of 66% of cost variances are driven by poor supplier collaboration. As you execute initiatives do you have visibility into the performance of your supply base? How are they integrated into the broader program plan? 3. Enhanced Risk Mitigation – Manage and react to uncertainty through improved transparency and contingency planning. What happens if you’re faced with a skills shortage? How do you plan and account for geo-political or weather related events? In summary, projects are not just the delivery of a product or service to a customer inside a predetermined schedule; they often form a contractual and even moral obligation to shareholders and stakeholders alike. Hence the intimate connection between executives and projects, with the latter providing executives with the platform to demonstrate that their organization has the capabilities and competencies needed to meet and, whenever possible, exceed their customer commitments. Effectively developing and operationalizing corporate strategy is the hallmark of successful executives and enterprise project and portfolio management allows them to achieve this goal. Article was first published for Manage India, an e-newsletter, PMI India.

Read the article

Examine your readiness for managing Enterprise Private Cloud

- by Anand Akela

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Cloud computing promises to deliver greater agility to meet demanding business needs, operational efficiencies, and lower cost. However these promises cannot be realized and enterprises may not be able to get the best value out of their enterprise private cloud computing infrastructure without a comprehensive cloud management solution . Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} Take this new self-assessment quiz that measures the readiness of your enterprise private cloud. It scores your readiness in the following areas and discover where and how you can improve to gain total cloud control over your enterprise private cloud. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Complete Cloud Lifecycle Solution Check if you are ready to manage all phases of the building, managing, and consuming an enterprise cloud. You will learn how Oracle can help build and manage a rich catalog of cloud services – whether it is Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Database-as-a-Service, or Platform-as-a-Service, all from a single product. Integrated Cloud Stack Management Integrated management of the entire cloud stack – all the way from application to disk, is very important to eliminate the integration pains and costs that customers would have to otherwise incur by trying to create a cloud environment by integrating multiple point solutions. Business-Driven Clouds It is critical that an enterprise Cloud platform is not only able to run applications but also has deep business insight and visibility. Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c enables creation of application-aware and business-driven clouds that has deep insight into applications, business services and transactions. As the leading providers of business applications and the middleware, we are able to offer you a cloud solution that is optimized for business services. Proactive Management Integration of the enterprise cloud infrastructure with support can allow cloud administrators to benefit from Automatic Service Requests (ASR), proactive patch recommendations, health checks and end-of-life advisory for all of the technology deployed within cloud. Learn more about solution for Enterprise Cloud and Cloud management by attending various sessions , demos and hand-on labs at Oracle Open World 2012 . Stay Connected: Twitter | Face book | You Tube | Linked in | Newsletter

Read the article

iOS Support with Windows Azure Mobile Services – now with Push Notifications

- by ScottGu

A few weeks ago I posted about a number of improvements to Windows Azure Mobile Services. One of these was the addition of an Objective-C client SDK that allows iOS developers to easily use Mobile Services for data and authentication. Today I'm excited to announce a number of improvement to our iOS SDK and, most significantly, our new support for Push Notifications via APNS (Apple Push Notification Services). This makes it incredibly easy to fire push notifications to your iOS users from Windows Azure Mobile Service scripts. Push Notifications via APNS We've provided two complete tutorials that take you step-by-step through the provisioning and setup process to enable your Windows Azure Mobile Service application with APNS (Apple Push Notification Services), including all of the steps required to configure your application for push in the Apple iOS provisioning portal: Getting started with Push Notifications - iOS Push notifications to users by using Mobile Services - iOS Once you've configured your application in the Apple iOS provisioning portal and uploaded the APNS push certificate to the Apple provisioning portal, it's just a matter of uploading your APNS push certificate to Mobile Services using the Windows Azure admin portal: Clicking the “upload” within the “Push” tab of your Mobile Service allows you to browse your local file-system and locate/upload your exported certificate. As part of this you can also select whether you want to use the sandbox (dev) or production (prod) Apple service: Now, the code to send a push notification to your clients from within a Windows Azure Mobile Service is as easy as the code below: push.apns.send(deviceToken, { alert: 'Toast: A new Mobile Services task.', sound: 'default' }); This will cause Windows Azure Mobile Services to connect to APNS (Apple Push Notification Service) and send a notification to the iOS device you specified via the deviceToken: Check out our reference documentation for full details on how to use the new Windows Azure Mobile Services apns object to send your push notifications. Feedback Scripts An important part of working with any PNS (Push Notification Service) is handling feedback for expired device tokens and channels. This typically happens when your application is uninstalled from a particular device and can no longer receive your notifications. With Windows Notification Services you get an instant response from the HTTP server. Apple’s Notification Services works in a slightly different way and provides an additional endpoint you can connect to poll for a list of expired tokens. As with all of the capabilities we integrate with Mobile Services, our goal is to allow developers to focus more on building their app and less on building infrastructure to support their ideas. Therefore we knew we had to provide a simple way for developers to integrate feedback from APNS on a regular basis. This week’s update now includes a new screen in the portal that allows you to optionally provide a script to process your APNS feedback – and it will be executed by Mobile Services on an ongoing basis: This script is invoked periodically while your service is active. To poll the feedback endpoint you can simply call the apns object's getFeedback method from within this script: push.apns.getFeedback({ success: function(results) { // results is an array of objects with a deviceToken and time properties } }); This returns you a list of invalid tokens that can now be removed from your database. iOS Client SDK improvements Over the last month we've continued to work with a number of iOS advisors to make improvements to our Objective-C SDK. The SDK is being developed under an open source license (Apache 2.0) and is available on github. Many of the improvements are behind the scenes to improve performance and memory usage. However, one of the biggest improvements to our iOS Client API is the addition of an even easier login method. Below is the Objective-C code you can now write to invoke it: [client loginWithProvider:@"twitter" onController:self animated:YES completion:^(MSUser *user, NSError *error) { // if no error, you are now logged in via twitter }]; This code will automatically present and dismiss our login view controller as a modal dialog on the specified controller. This does all the hard work for you and makes login via Twitter, Google, Facebook and Microsoft Account identities just a single line of code. My colleague Josh just posted a short video demonstrating these new features which I'd recommend checking out: Summary The above features are all now live in production and are available to use immediately. If you don’t already have a Windows Azure account, you can sign-up for a free trial and start using Mobile Services today. Visit the Windows Azure Mobile Developer Center to learn more about how to build apps with Mobile Services. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

Read the article

CS, SE, HCI, Information Science, Please recommendation for further education of the former performing art manager seeking career in IT industries? [on hold]

- by Baek Seungjoo

IT specialists there J Thank you very much for your collective efforts here, and I got huge help reading your professional comments and advices on each questions I have searched so far! This time, I would like to ask for your practical advices or recommendation on what I am struggling on at this moment. I am currently seeking higher education for my career transition from performing art manager and director to “IT software and/or service development and management specialist”. However, as this field is quite new to me, and there are lots of different work positions, I have no idea which grad major I better pursue in order to get qualification. Of course I know this question could sounds wired as it is kind of personal choice. But my lack of understanding on how IT software companies work in general, your practical and experience-based advice will be great help to me, who spent more than two months of self-research on net. OK. Before my question, here is my plan and history, which are quite different from those currently in IT industry I think… 1) Target Firstly, get career transition into IT service or products companies and get experiences. Eventually, pursue IT entrepreneurship in combination with my arts and cultural production and business expertise. 2) Background Career: performing arts director and manager in theatre-based scale opera and musical Art education in youth BA in literature and Chinese studies (Art & Humanities) MA in Cultural & Creative Industries (Art & Humanities) – dissertation with focus on digital prosumption and the lived experience of the prosumer. (a qualitative research on the agents in the digital world) 2) Personally Huge interest in IT hardware and software, and their trend. Skills to build up, repair, tune PCs -of course this is no more than personal hobby, but shows my interests in this field. 4) Problem Encounter a question “So, what do you think you can contribute practically in this position”. This question turn me down everytime I go through job interviews, and I decided more education in the relevant area. Here are my questions. 1) In terms of work positions in IT software companies, I wonder if I can put the comparison of what “Artists” is to “Arts Manager or Director” is what “Developer” is to “Product Manager”. (Of course, this stereotypical division of Artist-Art Manager is out of sense because the domain overlaps to some extent, and is blurring at least in my field, and they are in different contexts, but just speaking easily.) Normally, artist comes with special arts educations, and they live in their own world of artistic inspiration and creation, and they feel alive in practice and on stages. Meanwhile, from the point of staging and managing productions, the role of art manager is critical as well. Our role cares how the production appeals to the audience in effective way, how to make profit and future sustainable management through that, how to set up future strategy in consideration of the external conditions such as political and social circumstances, audience trend and level, other production trends from on-going and historical perspectives, how and what the production make voice to the society from political, economic, humanitarian stances. So, we need keen eyes on economic, political, and societal environment, have to understand human-being and their desires, must know how to make presentation and attract investors, must have sense in managing and fighting over the limited financial resource, how to extend networking and so on. It is common that the two agents create productions in collaboration (normally not in that ideal way but in conflict and fight though J ). So, we need to know each other’s expertise to some extent, for better production. What are the work positions in IT software industries equivalent to the role of “art manager” in performing arts? From my view, considering developers come with special education in the world of computer science, software engineering, or others (self-education sometimes), and they express themselves with the arts of coding, computer languages on the black screen, and make sort of their artistic production online to the audience, I guess there might be someone who collaborate with developers in creating, managing, and launching IT services or products. 2) Which education among CS, SE, HCI, Information Science, is needed for those seeking such work position? Especially for person like me. (At this moment, Information Science has the highest possibility to get in, since I lack Calculus and Math in undergrad educaiton. But please let me know irrespective of this concern, I think there are ways to back it up if CS or SE education needed in my case) 3) Which field between Information Science and HCI can be more practical background regarding job hungting? And which of them have more demands in job market? AS I checked, HCI is more close to CS than IS in its focus of study area. Thank you very much for your patience reading such a long inquiry, and I appreciate to your efforts in advance. Have a nice day in this beautiful summer.

Read the article

Are IE9 really good ?

- by anirudha

IE9 started a campaign for kill IE6 from the core because they know that IE6 is a big trouble or problem for them for promote 9 version of IE. so they started a campaign for killing IE6. next time they kill IE 7 , 8,9 whenever they found this old version have a big problem for them to promote next version of IE. Why they not make a update system who automatically update the browser and tell user to restart and update goes installed in the user system. well IE9 should learn from all other that they have very well design auto-update system who never give user in trouble that your browser goes old. Chrome and Firefox both update themselves and say user restart to enjoy another good version. in IE6 a big problem is that updates. no one sure that they installed new version of IE6 without any hassles and update goes install without any problem because they really know or care about “you need this to install this and this for this” so they thing “why I update IE whenever I am unsure that my browser goes update and I have no problem again” so they do nothing because their work done with no problem because common person used high profile application who work even in IE6. so they do nothing. IE6 countdown website have designed a banner for warn or force user to upgrade to next version of IE. well there is no good reason for put the banner on website some of reason are:- Windows 7 comes with pre-installed IE8 and Vista comes with upgrade version them IE6 so that is sure that you force a user who have Windows XP [luna] and if they want to upgrade IE then they can get IE8 not version 9 because IE9 is design for Windows 7 or Vista Service pack 2. so What is the use of update when user still have a outdate version too because IE8 is old version and not have any capability of HTML5 so forcing user by using the banner have no sense. I am not know why they all listed on website put the banner on their own website. it’s good that you offer user what they want instead of giving them a outdate version of IE again. My means to give a user list of browser they can try to enhance their browser experience instead of only IE. IE9 build upon WPF and they spent more time on using WPF in IE instead of making user experience browser. many thing is designed wrongly in IE first thing is tabs. the tabs in chrome are bigger and easily to move and same in Firefox even not have smooth tabbing. IE have same tabbing as chrome have but leak a point that it’s too small. if you really want to move then sometime they create a problem that they going elsewhere from the current instance of IE. Chrome have a big buttons, tabs and menu to enhance browser experience and Firefox have a good feature that you can make them bigger or small. you can put the icon for add-ons on the toolbar for easily use but IE have no relation with customization so we never can thinking about that. When chrome provide lot’s of extensions and a webstore for browser application and same feature in Firefox can be seen then there is no plugin in IE. really you can see their IE addons Website where no plugin listed for web development. even in the category or tag. as a response from many blog there is new for developer that new version of IE9 developer tool. well IE9 have three new tabs a blogger tell on their blog. when I trying them I found many thing but I still unable to edit the Css from the HTML tab and no plugin I found I can get to enhance IE9 web development. something more other provide never IE9 give me like personas , customization , browser extension or any other they used to tell a small thing customization . IE9 still have some problem with JavaScript that when I use Firefox and chrome and logout in both then my cookie is deleted but in IE it’s not done. it’s show me that IE9 still have different from other not for good thing even some bad thing too. When I trying to read a article that is written in Hindi using Unicode font I found that they show many thing misspelled. there is three Sha in Hindi but they all goes wrong in IE. the misprint thing is not that the writing for the articles goes wrong. it’s problem or browser to rendering a font. the Firefox and chrome not give me this problem even opera render the font in italic style by decrease the font-size but all those work perfect. in Pwn2Own the apple’s safari and IE9 both are hacked. this is a awesome news for whose who thing that open-source is lose in Security and close-source is highly-secured software. well this is not a good parameter for talking about software. it’s should depend how much application tested and used. because more testing and more use of application make them better. I appreciate IE to making their new version 9 and good luck for them. there is a another matter that I personally found nothing on them.

Read the article

Oracle Cloud Applications: The Right Ingredients Baked In

- by yaldahhakim

v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Oracle Cloud Applications: The Right Ingredients Baked In Eggs, flour, milk, and sugar. The magic happens when you mix these ingredients together. The same goes for the hottest technologies fast changing how IT impacts our organizations today: cloud, social, mobile, and big data. By themselves they’re pretty good; combining them with a great recipe is what unlocks real transformation power. Choosing the right cloud can be very similar to choosing the right cake. First consider comparing the core ingredients that go into baking a cake and the core design principles in building a cloud-based application. For instance, if flour is the base ingredient of a cake, then rich functionality that spans complete business processes is the base of an enterprise-grade cloud. Cloud computing is more than just consuming an "application as service", and having someone else manage it for you. Rather, the value of cloud is about making your business more agile in the marketplace, and shortening the time it takes to deliver and adopt new innovation. It’s also about improving not only the efficiency at which we communicate but the actual quality of the information shared as well. Data from different systems, like ingredients in a cake, must also be blended together effectively and evaluated through a consolidated lens. When this doesn’t happen, for instance when data in your sales cloud doesn't seamlessly connect with your order management and other “back office” applications, the speed and quality of information can decrease drastically. It’s like mixing ingredients in a strainer with a straw – you just can’t bring it all together without losing something. Mixing ingredients is similar to bringing clouds together, and co-existing cloud applications with traditional on premise applications. This is where a shared services platform built on open standards and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is critical. It’s essentially a cloud recipe that calls for not only great ingredients, but also ingredients you can get locally or most likely already have in your kitchen (or IT shop.) Open standards is the best way to deliver a cost effective, durable application integration strategy – regardless of where your apps are deployed. It’s also the best way to build your own cloud applications, or extend the ones you consume from a third party. Just like using standard ingredients and tools you already have in your kitchen, a standards based cloud enables your IT resources to ensure a cloud works easily with other systems. Your IT staff can also make changes using tools they are already familiar with. Or even more ideal, enable business users to actually tailor their experience without having to call upon IT for help at all. This frees IT resources to focus more on developing new innovative services for the organization vs. run and maintain. Carrying the cake analogy forward, you need to add all the ingredients in before you bake it. The same is true with a modern cloud. To harness the full power of cloud, you can’t leave out some of the most important ingredients and just layer them on top later. This is what a lot of our niche competitors have done when it comes to social, mobile, big data and analytics, and other key technologies impacting the way we do business. The transformational power of these technology trends comes from having a strategy from the get-go that combines them into a winning recipe, and delivers them in a unified way. In looking at ways Oracle’s cloud is different from other clouds – not only is breadth of functionality rich across functional pillars like CRM, HCM, ERP, etc. but it embeds social, mobile, and rich intelligence capabilities where they make the most sense across business processes. This strategy enables the Oracle Cloud to uniquely deliver on all three of these dimensions to help our customers unlock the full power of these transformational technologies.

Read the article

Lesi, from Graduate Trainee to Territory Manager

- by Maria Sandu

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 It’s the final year, University is now coming to an end. A new chapter now awaits my arrival. This part of my life is called “Looking for a Job”. With no form of experience whatsoever, getting a job at a well renowned IT company is something that every IT student dreams about. CV: v, Application form: v, interviews: v. Acceptance Call, “Lesi I’m pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to be part of the Oracle Graduate Program for 2012”. Life would never again be the same. Being Part of the Graduate Program Going into the Graduate program, I felt like a baby seeing candy for the first time. The Program gave me the platform to not only break in to the workplace but also to help launch my career. Over the next 3 months, I went through various trainings / workshops / events / coaching / mentorship sessions. Like a construction worker building a solid foundation for a beautifully designed architecture, a clear path to build my career was set. With training out the way, it was now time to start working closely with my team. For the rest of the year, it was all about selling. Sales, Pipeline, Forecasting and numbers soon became the common words in my career. As the saying goes, “once a sales man, always a sales man”. There was no turning back now, a career in sales was the new hustle in my life. I worked closely with my mentor & coach (Ibrahim) who was heading up Zambia and Malawi. This was to be one of my best moments in the program as I started engaging with customers and getting some hands on experience in the field. By the end of the program all the experience, hard work, training and resources came in handy as I was now ready and fully groomed to be a sales rep. Life after the Graduate Program I’m proud to say that now I’m a Territory Manager, heading up Malawi, selling Technology, Middleware & Applications across all industries. I’m part of the Transition Cluster Team, a powerful team headed by the seasoned Senior Director. As a Territory Manager my role is to push for coverage, to penetrate the market by selling Oracle from end- to- end to all accounts in Malawi. I now spend my days living out of a suitcase, moving from hotel to hotel, chasing after business in all areas of Malawi. It’s the life of a Sales Man and I’m enjoying every minute of it. I’m truly fortunate and grateful to have been part of such a wonderful graduate program. I owe my Sales career to the graduate program, and I truly hope that the program will continue to develop and to groom new talent amongst the youth of this world. If you're interested in joining the Graduate Program in South Africa keep an eye on our CampusatOracle Facebook Page page to get the latest updates! /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

Read the article

What to "CRM" in San Francisco? CRM Highlights for OpenWorld '12

- by Richard Lefebvre

There is plenty to SEE for CRM during OpenWorld in San Francisco, September 30 - October 4! Here are some of the sessions in the CRM Track that you might want to consider attending for products you currently own or might consider for the future. I think you'll agree, there is quite a bit of investment going on across Oracle CRM. Please use OpenWorld Schedule Builder or check the OpenWorld Content Catalog for all of the session details and any time or location changes. Tip: Pre-enrolled session registrants via Schedule Builder are allowed into the session rooms before anyone else, so Schedule Builder will guarantee you a seat. Many of the sessions below will likely be at capacity. General Session: Oracle Fusion CRM—Improving Sales Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Ease of Use (Session ID: GEN9674) - Oct 2, 11:45 AM - 12:45 PM. Anthony Lye, Senior VP, Oracle leads this general session focused on Oracle Fusion CRM. Oracle Fusion CRM optimizes territories, combines quota management and incentive compensation, integrates sales and marketing, and cleanses and enriches data—all within a single application platform. Oracle Fusion can be configured, changed, and extended at runtime by end users, business managers, IT, and developers. Oracle Fusion CRM can be used from the Web, from a smartphone, from Microsoft Outlook, or from an iPad. Deloitte, sponsor of the CRM Track, will also present key concepts on CRM implementations. Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management: Overview/Strategy/Customer Experiences/Roadmap (CON9407) - Oct 1, 3:15PM - 4:15PM. In this session, learn how Oracle Fusion CRM enables companies to create better sales plans, generate more quality leads, and achieve higher win rates and find out why customers are adopting Oracle Fusion CRM. Gain a deeper understanding of the unique capabilities only Oracle Fusion CRM provides, and learn how Oracle’s commitment to CRM innovation is driving a wide range of future enhancements. Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service Vision and Roadmap (CON9764) - Oct 1, 10:45 AM - 11:45 AM. Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service combines Web, social, and contact center experiences for a unified, cross-channel service solution in the cloud, enabling organizations to increase sales and adoption, build trust, strengthen relationships, and reduce costs and effort. Come to this session to hear from Oracle experts about where the product is going and how Oracle is committed to accelerating the pace of innovation and value to its customers. Siebel CRM Overview, Strategy, and Roadmap (CON9700) - Oct 1, 12:15PM - 1:15PM. The world’s most complete CRM solution, Oracle’s Siebel CRM helps organizations differentiate their businesses. Come to this session to learn about the Siebel product roadmap and how Oracle is committed to accelerating the pace of innovation and value for its customers on this platform. Additionally, the session covers how Siebel customers can leverage many Oracle assets such as Oracle WebCenter Sites; InQuira, RightNow, and ATG/Endeca applications, and Oracle Policy Automation in conjunction with their current Siebel investments. Oracle Fusion Social CRM Strategy and Roadmap: Future of Collaboration and Social Engagement (CON9750) - Oct 4, 11:15 AM - 12:15 PM. Social is changing the customer experience! Come find out how Oracle can help you know your customers better, encourage brand affinity, and improve collaboration within your ecosystem. This session reviews Oracle’s social media solution and shows how you can discover hidden insights buried in your enterprise and social data. Also learn how Oracle Social Network revolutionizes how enterprise users work, collaborate, and share to achieve successful outcomes. Oracle CRM On Demand Strategy and Roadmap (CON9727) - Oct 1, 10:45AM - 11:45AM. Oracle CRM On Demand is a powerful cloud-based customer relationship management solution. Come to this session to learn directly from Oracle experts about future product plans and hear how Oracle is committed to accelerating the pace of innovation and value to its customers. Knowledge Management Roadmap and Strategy (CON9776) - Oct 1, 12:15PM - 1:15PM. Learn how to harness the knowledge created as a natural byproduct of day-to-day interactions to lower costs and improve customer experience by delivering the right answer at the right time across channels. This session includes an overview of Oracle’s product roadmap and vision for knowledge management for both the Oracle RightNow and Oracle Knowledge (formerly InQuira) product families. Oracle Policy Automation Roadmap: Supercharging the Customer Experience (CON9655) - Oct 1, 12:15PM - 1:15PM. Oracle Policy Automation delivers rapid customer value by streamlining the capture, analysis, and deployment of policies across every facet of the customer experience. This session discusses recent Oracle Policy Automation enhancements for policy analytics; the latest Oracle Policy Automation Connector for Siebel; and planned new capabilities, including availability with the Oracle RightNow product line. There is much more, so stay tuned for more highlights or check out the Content Catalog and search for your areas of interest.

Read the article

Tip #19 Module Private Visibility in OSGi

- by ByronNevins

I hate public and protected methods and classes. It requires so much work to change them in a huge project like GlassFish. Not to mention that you may well have to support those APIs forever. They are highly overused in GlassFish. In fact I'd bet that > 95% of classes are marked as public for no good reason. It's just (bad) habit is my guess. private and default visibility (I call it package-private) is easier to maintain. It is much much easier to change such classes and methods around. If you have ANY public method or public class in GlassFish you'll need to grep through a tremendous amount of source code to find all callers. But even that won't be theoretically reliable. What if a caller is using reflection to access public methods? You may never find such usages. If you have package private methods, it's easy. Simply grep through all the code in that one package. As long as that package compiles ok you're all set. There can' be any compile errors anywhere else. It's a waste of time to even look around or build the "outside" world. So you may be thinking: "Aha! I'll just make my module have one giant package with all the java files. Then I can use the default visibility and maintenance will be much easier. But there's a problem. You are wasting a very nice feature of java -- organizing code into separate packages. It also makes the code much more encapsulated. Unfortunately to share code between the packages you have no choice but to declare public visibility. What happens in practice is that a module ends up having tons of public classes and methods that are used exclusively inside the module. Which finally brings me to the point of this blog: If Only There Was A Module-Private Visibility Available Well, surprise! There is such a mechanism. If your project is running under OSGi that is. Like GlassFish does! With this mechanism you can easily add another level of visibility by telling OSGi exactly which public you want to be exposed outside of the module. You get the best of both worlds: Better encapsulation of your code so that maintenance is easier and productivity is increased. Usage of public visibility inside the module so that you can encapsulate intra-module better with packages. How I do this in GlassFish: Carefully plan out at least one package that will contain "true" publics. This is the package that will be exported by OSGi. I recommend just one package. Here is how to tell OSGi to use it in GlassFish -- edit osgi.bundle like so:-exportcontents: org.glassfish.mymodule.truepublics; version=${project.osgi.version} Now all publics declared in any other packages will be visible module-wide but not outside the module. There is one caveat: Accessing "module-private" items outside of the module is controlled at run-time, not compile-time. The compiler has no clue that a public in a dependent module isn't really public. it will happily compile it. At runtime you will definitely see fireworks. The good news is that you don't have to wait for the code path that tries to use the "module-private" items to fire. OSGi will complain loudly when that module gets loaded. OSGi will refuse to load it. You will see an error like this: remote failure: Error while loading FOO: Exception while adding the new configuration : Error occurred during deployment: Exception while loading the app : org.osgi.framework.BundleException: Unresolved constraint in bundle com.oracle.glassfish.miscreant.code [115]: Unable to resolve 115.0: missing requirement [115.0] osgi.wiring.package; (osgi.wiring.package=org.glassfish.mymodule.unexported). Please see server.log for more details. That is if you accidentally change code in module B to use a public that is really a "module-private" in module A, then you will see the error immediately when you try to test whatever you were changing in module B.

Read the article

Building a Repository Pattern against an EF 5 EDMX Model - Part 1

- by Juan

I am part of a year long plus project that is re-writing an existing application for a client. We have decided to develop the project using Visual Studio 2012 and .NET 4.5. The project will be using a number of technologies and patterns to include Entity Framework 5, WCF Services, and WPF for the client UI.This is my attempt at documenting some of the successes and failures that I will be coming across in the development of the application.In building the data access layer we have to access a database that has already been designed by a dedicated dba. The dba insists on using Stored Procedures which has made the use of EF a little more difficult. He will not allow direct table access but we did manage to get him to allow us to use Views. Since EF 5 does not have good support to do Code First with Stored Procedures, my option was to create a model (EDMX) against the existing database views. I then had to go select each entity and map the Insert/Update/Delete functions to their respective stored procedure. The next step after I had completed mapping the stored procedures to the entities in the EDMX model was to figure out how to build a generic repository that would work well with Entity Framework 5. After reading the blog posts below, I adopted much of their code with some changes to allow for the use of Ninject for dependency injection.http://www.tcscblog.com/2012/06/22/entity-framework-generic-repository/ http://www.tugberkugurlu.com/archive/generic-repository-pattern-entity-framework-asp-net-mvc-and-unit-testing-triangle IRepository.cs public interface IRepository : IDisposable where T : class { void Add(T entity); void Update(T entity, int id); T GetById(object key); IQueryable Query(Expression> predicate); IQueryable GetAll(); int SaveChanges(); int SaveChanges(bool validateEntities); } GenericRepository.cs public abstract class GenericRepository : IRepository where T : class { public abstract void Add(T entity); public abstract void Update(T entity, int id); public abstract T GetById(object key); public abstract IQueryable Query(Expression> predicate); public abstract IQueryable GetAll(); public int SaveChanges() { return SaveChanges(true); } public abstract int SaveChanges(bool validateEntities); public abstract void Dispose(); } One of the issues I ran into was trying to do an update. I kept receiving errors so I posted a question on Stack Overflow http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12585664/an-object-with-the-same-key-already-exists-in-the-objectstatemanager-the-object and came up with the following hack. If someone has a better way, please let me know. DbContextRepository.cs public class DbContextRepository : GenericRepository where T : class { protected DbContext Context; protected DbSet DbSet; public DbContextRepository(DbContext context) { if (context == null) throw new ArgumentException("context"); Context = context; DbSet = Context.Set(); } public override void Add(T entity) { if (entity == null) throw new ArgumentException("Cannot add a null entity."); DbSet.Add(entity); } public override void Update(T entity, int id) { if (entity == null) throw new ArgumentException("Cannot update a null entity."); var entry = Context.Entry(entity); if (entry.State == EntityState.Detached) { var attachedEntity = DbSet.Find(id); // Need to have access to key if (attachedEntity != null) { var attachedEntry = Context.Entry(attachedEntity); attachedEntry.CurrentValues.SetValues(entity); } else { entry.State = EntityState.Modified; // This should attach entity } } } public override T GetById(object key) { return DbSet.Find(key); } public override IQueryable Query(Expression> predicate) { return DbSet.Where(predicate); } public override IQueryable GetAll() { return Context.Set(); } public override int SaveChanges(bool validateEntities) { Context.Configuration.ValidateOnSaveEnabled = validateEntities; return Context.SaveChanges(); } #region IDisposable implementation public override void Dispose() { if (Context != null) { Context.Dispose(); GC.SuppressFinalize(this); } } #endregion IDisposable implementation } At this point I am able to start creating individual repositories that are needed and add a Unit of Work. Stay tuned for the next installment in my path to creating a Repository Pattern against EF5.

Read the article

Windows Phone 8 Launch Event Summary

- by Tim Murphy

Today was the official coming out party for Windows Phone 8. Below is a summary of the launch event. There is a lot here to stay with me. They started with a commercial staring Joe Belfiore show how his Windows Phone 8 was personal too him which highlights something I think Microsoft has done well over the last couple of event: spotlight how Windows Phone is a different experience from other smartphones. Joe actually called iPhone and Android “tired old metaphors" and explained that the idea around Windows Phone was to “reinvent the smartphone around you” as “the most personal smartphone operating system”. The is the message that they need to drive home in their adds. The only real technical aspect we found out was that they have optimized the operating system around the dual core Qualcomm Snapdragon chip set. It seems like all of the other hardware goodies had already been announced. The remainder of the event was centered around new features of the OS and app announcements. So what are we getting? The integrated features included lock screen live tile, Data Sense, Rooms and Kids corner. There wasn’t a lot of information about it, but Joe also talked about apps not just having live tiles, but being live apps that could integrate with wallet and the hub. The lock screen will now be able to be personalized with live tile data or even a photo slide show. This gives the lock screen an even better ability to give you the information you want to know before you even unlock the phone. The Kids Corner allows you as a parent to setup an area on your phone that you kids can go into an use it without disturbing your apps. They can play games or use apps that you have designated and will only see those apps. It even has a special lock screen gesture just for the kids corner. Rooms allow you to organize your phone around the groups of people in your life. You get a shared calendar, a room wall as well as shared notes beyond just being able to send messages to a group. You can also invite people not on the Windows Phone platform to access an online version of the room. Data Sense is a new feature that gives you better control and understanding of your data plan usage. You can see which applications are using data and it can automatically adjust they way your phone behaves as you get close to your data limit. Add to these features the fact that the entire Windows ecosystem is integrated with SkyDrive and you have an available anywhere experience that is unequaled by any other platform. Your document, photos and music are available on your Windows Phone, Window 8 device and Xbox. SkyDrive also doesn’t limit how long you can keep files like the competing cloud platforms and give more free storage. It was interesting the way they made the launch event more personal. First Joe brought out his own kids to demo the Kids Corner. They followed this up by bringing out Jessica Alba to discuss her experience on the Windows Phone 8. They need to keep putting a face on the product instead of just showing features as a cold list. Then we get to apps. We knew that the new Skype was coming, but we found out that it was created in such a way that it can receive calls without running consistently in the background which would eat up battery. This announcement was follow by the coming Facebook app that is optimized for Windows Phone 8. As a matter of fact they indicated that just after launch the marketplace would have 46 out of the top 50 apps used by all smartphone platforms. In a rational world this tide with over 120,000 apps currently in the marketplace there should be no more argument about the Windows Phone ecosystem. For those of us who develop for Windows Phone and weren’t on the early adoption program will finally get access to the SDK tomorrow after an announcement at Build (more waiting). Perhaps we will get a few new features then. In the end I wouldn’t say there were any huge surprises, but I am really excited about getting my hands on the devices next month and starting to develop. Stay tuned. del.icio.us Tags: Windows Phone,Windows Phone 8,Winodws Phone 8 Launch,Joe Belfiore,Jessica Alba

Read the article

Clouds, Clouds, Clouds Everywhere, Not a Drop of Rain!

- by sxkumar

At the recently concluded Oracle OpenWorld 2012, the center of discussion was clearly Cloud. Over the five action packed days, I got to meet a large number of customers and most of them had serious interest in all things cloud. Public Cloud - particularly the Oracle Cloud - clearly got a lot of attention and interest. I think the use cases and the value proposition for public cloud is pretty straight forward. However, when it comes to private cloud, there were some interesting revelations. Well, I shouldn’t really call them revelations since they are pretty consistent with what I have heard from customers at other conferences as well as during 1:1 interactions. While the interest in enterprise private cloud remains to be very high, only a handful of enterprises have truly embarked on a journey to create what the purists would call true private cloud - with capabilities such as self-service and chargeback/show back. For a large majority, today's reality is simply consolidation and virtualization - and they are quite far off from creating an agile, self-service and transparent IT infrastructure which is what the enterprise cloud is all about. Even a handful of those who have actually implemented a close-to-real enterprise private cloud have taken an infrastructure centric approach and are seeing only limited business upside. Quite a few were frank enough to admit that chargeback and self-service isn’t something that they see an immediate need for. This is in quite contrast to the picture being painted by all those surveys out there that show a large number of enterprises having already implemented an enterprise private cloud. On the face of it, this seems quite contrary to the observations outlined above. So what exactly is the reality? Well, the reality is that there is undoubtedly a huge amount of interest among enterprises about transforming their legacy IT environment - which is often seen as too rigid, too fragmented, and ultimately too expensive - to something more agile, transparent and business-focused. At the same time however, there is a great deal of confusion among CIOs and architects about how to get there. This isn't very surprising given all the buzz and hype surrounding cloud computing. Every IT vendor claims to have the most unique solution and there isn't a single IT product out there that does not have a cloud angle to it. Add to this the chatter on the blogosphere, it will get even a sane mind spinning. Consequently, most enterprises are still struggling to fully understand the concept and value of enterprise private cloud. Even among those who have chosen to move forward relatively early, quite a few have made their decisions more based on vendor influence/preferences rather than what their businesses actually need. Clearly, there is a disconnect between the promise of the enterprise private cloud and the current adoption trends. So what is the way forward? I certainly do not claim to have all the answers. But here is a perspective that many cloud practitioners have found useful and thus worth sharing. To take a step back, the fundamental premise of the enterprise private cloud is IT transformation. It is the quest to create a more agile, transparent and efficient IT infrastructure that is driven more by business needs rather than constrained by operational and procedural inefficiencies. It is the new way of delivering and consuming IT services - where the IT organizations operate more like enablers of strategic services rather than just being the gatekeepers of IT resources. In an enterprise private cloud environment, IT organizations are expected to empower the end users via self-service access/control and provide the business stakeholders a transparent view of how the resources are being used, what’s the cost of delivering a given service, how well are the customers being served, etc. But the most important thing to note here is the enterprise private cloud is not just an IT project, rather it is a business initiative to create an IT setup that is more aligned with the needs of today's dynamic and highly competitive business environment. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Just remember how the business users have been at the forefront of public cloud adoption within enterprises and private cloud is no exception. Such a broad-based transformation makes cloud more than a technology initiative. It requires people (organizational) and process changes as well, and these changes are as critical as is the choice of right tools and technology. In my next blog, I will share how essential it is for enterprise cloud technology to go hand-in hand with process re-engineering and organization changes to unlock true value of enterprise cloud. I am sharing a short video from my session "Managing your private Cloud" at Oracle OpenWorld 2012. More videos from this session will be posted at the recently introduced Zero to Cloud resource page. Many other experts of Oracle enterprise private cloud solution will join me on this blog "Zero to Cloud" and share best practices , deployment tips and information on how to plan, build, deploy, monitor, manage , meter and optimize the enterprise private cloud. We look forward to your feedback, suggestions and having an engaging conversion with you on this blog.

Read the article

ComboBox Data Binding

- by Geertjan

Let's create a databound combobox, levering MVC in a desktop application. The result will be a combobox, provided by the NetBeans ChoiceView, that displays data retrieved from a database: What follows is not much different from the NetBeans Platform CRUD Application Tutorial and you're advised to consult that document if anything that follows isn't clear enough. One kind of interesting thing about the instructions that follow is that it shows that you're able to create an application where each element of the MVC architecture can be located within a separate module: Start by creating a new NetBeans Platform application named "MyApplication". Model We're going to start by generating JPA entity classes from a database connection. In the New Project wizard, choose "Java Class Library". Click Next. Name the Java Class Library "MyEntities". Click Finish. Right-click the MyEntities project, choose New, and then select "Entity Classes from Database". Work through the wizard, selecting the tables of interest from your database, and naming the package "entities". Click Finish. Now a JPA entity is created for each of the selected tables. In the Project Properties dialog of the project, choose "Copy Dependent Libraries" in the Packaging panel. Build the project. In your project's "dist" folder (visible in the Files window), you'll now see a JAR, together with a "lib" folder that contains the JARs you'll need. In your NetBeans Platform application, create a module named "MyModel", with code name base "org.my.model". Right-click the project, choose Properties, and in the "Libraries" panel, click Add Dependency button in the Wrapped JARs subtab to add all the JARs from the previous step to the module. Also include "derby-client.jar" or the equivalent driver for your database connection to the module. Controler In your NetBeans Platform application, create a module named "MyControler", with code name base "org.my.controler". Right-click the module's Libraries node, in the Projects window, and add a dependency on "Explorer & Property Sheet API". In the MyControler module, create a class with this content: package org.my.controler; import org.openide.explorer.ExplorerManager; public class MyUtils { static ExplorerManager controler; public static ExplorerManager getControler() { if (controler == null) { controler = new ExplorerManager(); } return controler; } } View In your NetBeans Platform application, create a module named "MyView", with code name base "org.my.view". Create a new Window Component, in "explorer" view, for example, let it open on startup, with class name prefix "MyView". Add dependencies on the Nodes API and on the Explorer & Property Sheet API. Also add dependencies on the "MyModel" module and the "MyControler" module. Before doing so, in the "MyModel" module, make the "entities" package and the "javax.persistence" packages public (in the Libraries panel of the Project Properties dialog) and make the one package that you have in the "MyControler" package public too. Define the top part of the MyViewTopComponent as follows: public final class MyViewTopComponent extends TopComponent implements ExplorerManager.Provider { ExplorerManager controler = MyUtils.getControler(); public MyViewTopComponent() { initComponents(); setName(Bundle.CTL_MyViewTopComponent()); setToolTipText(Bundle.HINT_MyViewTopComponent()); setLayout(new BoxLayout(this, BoxLayout.PAGE_AXIS)); controler.setRootContext(new AbstractNode(Children.create(new ChildFactory<Customer>() { @Override protected boolean createKeys(List list) { EntityManager entityManager = Persistence. createEntityManagerFactory("MyEntitiesPU").createEntityManager(); Query query = entityManager.createNamedQuery("Customer.findAll"); list.addAll(query.getResultList()); return true; } @Override protected Node createNodeForKey(Customer key) { Node customerNode = new AbstractNode(Children.LEAF, Lookups.singleton(key)); customerNode.setDisplayName(key.getName()); return customerNode; } }, true))); controler.addPropertyChangeListener(new PropertyChangeListener() { @Override public void propertyChange(PropertyChangeEvent evt) { Customer selectedCustomer = controler.getSelectedNodes()[0].getLookup().lookup(Customer.class); StatusDisplayer.getDefault().setStatusText(selectedCustomer.getName()); } }); JPanel row1 = new JPanel(new FlowLayout(FlowLayout.LEADING)); row1.add(new JLabel("Customers: ")); row1.add(new ChoiceView()); add(row1); } @Override public ExplorerManager getExplorerManager() { return controler; } ... ... ... Now run the application and you'll see the same as the image with which this blog entry started.

Read the article

ASP.NET: Including JavaScript libraries conditionally from CDN

- by DigiMortal

When developing cloud applications it is still useful to build them so they can run also on local machine without network connection. One thing you use from CDN when in cloud and from app folder when not connected are common JavaScript libraries. In this posting I will show you how to add support for local and CDN script stores to your ASP.NET MVC web application. Our solution is simple. We will add new configuration setting to our web.config file (including cloud transform file of it) and new property to our web application. In master page where scripts are included we will include scripts from CDN conditionally. There is nothing complex, all changes we make are simple ones. 1. Adding new property to web application Although I am using ASP.NET MVC web application these modifications work also very well with ASP.NET Forms. Open Global.asax and add new static property to your application class. public static bool UseCdn { get { var valueString = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["useCdn"]; bool useCdn; bool.TryParse(valueString, out useCdn); return useCdn; } } If you want less round-trips to configuration data you can keep some nullable boolean in your application class scope and load CDN setting first time it is asked. 2. Adding new configuration setting to web.config By default my application uses local scripts. Although my application runs on cloud I can do a lot of stuff without staging environment in cloud. So by default I don’t have costs on traffic when including scripts from application folders. <appSettings> <add key="UseCdn" value="false" /> </appSettings> You can also set UseCdn value to true and change it to false when you are not connected to network. 3. Modifying web.config cloud transform I have special configuration for my solution that I use when deploying my web application to cloud. This configuration is called Cloud and transform for this configuration is located in web.cloud.config. To make application using CDN when deployed to cloud we need the following transform. <appSettings> <add key="UseCdn" value="true" xdt:Transform="SetAttributes" xdt:Locator="Match(key)" /> </appSettings> Now when you publish your application to cloud it uses CDN by default. 4. Including scripts in master pages The last thing we need to change is our master page. My solution is simple. I check if I have to include scripts from CDN and if it is true then I include scripts from there. Otherwise my scripts will be included from application folder. @if (MyWeb.MvcApplication.UseCdn) { <script src="http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/jquery/jquery-1.4.4.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> } else { <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery-1.4.4.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script> } Although here is only one script shown you can add all your scripts that are also available in some CDN in this if-else block. You are free to include scripts from different CDN services if you need. Conclusion As we saw it was very easy to modify our application to make it use CDN for JavaScript libraries in cloud and local scripts when run on local machine. We made only small changes to our application code, configuration and master pages to get different script sources supported. Our application is now more independent from external sources when we are working on it.

Read the article

To Make Diversity Work, Managers Must Stop Ignoring Difference

- by HCM-Oracle

By Kate Pavao - Originally posted on Profit Executive coaches Jane Hyun and Audrey S. Lee noticed something during their leadership development coaching and consulting: Frustrated employees and overwhelmed managers. “We heard from voices saying, ‘I wish my manager understood me better’ or ‘I hope my manager would take the time to learn more about me and my background,’” remembers Hyun. “At the same token, the managers we were coaching had a hard time even knowing how to start these conversations.” Hyun and Lee wrote Flex to address some of the fears managers have when it comes to leading diverse teams—such as being afraid of offending their employees by stumbling into sensitive territory—and also to provide a sure-footed strategy for becoming a more effective leader. Here, Hyun talks about what it takes to create innovate and productive teams in an increasingly diverse world, including the key characteristics successful managers share. Q: What does it mean to “flex”? Hyun: Flexing is the art of switching between leadership styles to work more effectively with people who are different from you. It’s not fundamentally changing who you are, but it’s understanding when you need to adapt your style in a situation so that you can accommodate people and make them feel more comfortable. It’s understanding the gap that might exist between you and others who are different, and then flexing across that gap to get the result that you're looking for. It’s up to all of us, not just managers, but also employees, to learn how to flex. When you hire new people to the organization, they're expected to adapt. The new people in the organization may need some guidance around how to best flex. They can certainly take the initiative, but if you can give them some direction around the important rules, and connect them with insiders who can help them figure out the most critical elements of the job, that will accelerate how quickly they can contribute to your organization. Q: Why is it important right now for managers to understand flexing? Hyun: The workplace is becoming increasingly younger, multicultural and female. The numbers bear it out. Millennials are entering the workforce and becoming a larger percentage of it, which is a global phenomenon. Thirty-six percent of the workforce is multicultural, and close to half is female. It makes sense to better understand the people who are increasingly a part of your workforce, and how to best lead them and manage them as well. Q: What do companies miss out on when managers don’t flex? Hyun: There are high costs for losing people or failing to engage them. The estimated costs of replacing an employee is about 150 percent of that person’s salary. There are studies showing that employee disengagement costs the U.S. something like $450 billion a year. But voice is the biggest thing you miss out on if you don’t flex. Whenever you want innovation or increased productivity from your people, you need to figure out how to unleash these things. The way you get there is to make sure that everybody’s voice is at the table. Q: What are some of the common misassumptions that managers make about the people on their teams? Hyun: One is what I call the Golden Rule mentality: We assume when we go to the workplace that people are going to think like us and operate like us. But sometimes when you work with people from a different culture or a different generation, they may have a different mindset about doing something, or a different approach to solving a problem, or a different way to manage some situation. When see something that’s different, we don't understand it, so we don't trust it. We have this hidden bias for people who are like us. That gets in the way of really looking at how we can tap our team members best potential by understanding how their difference may help them be effective in our workplace. We’re trained, especially in the workplace, to make assumptions quickly, so that you can make the best business decision. But with people, it’s better to remain curious. If you want to build stronger cross-cultural, cross-generational, cross-gender relationships, before you make a judgment, share what you observe with that team member, and connect with him or her in ways that are mutually adaptive, so that you can work together more effectively. Q: What are the common characteristics you see in leaders who are successful at flexing? Hyun: One is what I call “adaptive ability”—leaders who are able to understand that someone on their team is different from them, and willing to adapt his or her style to do that. Another one is “unconditional positive regard,” which is basically acceptance of others, even in their vulnerable moments. This attitude of grace is critical and essential to a healthy environment in developing people. If you think about when people enter the workforce, they're only 21 years old. It’s quite a formative time for them. They may not have a lot of management experience, or experience managing complex or even global projects. Creating the best possible condition for their development requires turning their mistakes into teachable moments, and giving them an opportunity to really learn. Finally, these leaders are not rigid or constrained in a single mode or style. They have this insatiable curiosity about other people. They don’t judge when they see behavior that doesn’t make sense, or is different from their own. For example, maybe someone on their team is a less aggressive than they are. The leader needs to remain curious and thinks, “Wow, I wonder how I can engage in a dialogue with this person to get their potential out in the open.”

Search Results

Search found 17076 results on 684 pages for 'nightly build'.

Page 631/684 | < Previous Page | 627 628 629 630 631 632 633 634 635 636 637 638 | Next Page >

- by mbcrump

- by Arda Eralp

- by Jeff

- by StuartBrierley

- by Maria Sandu

- by Chris Skardon

- by Stuart Blackler

- by Tim Murphy

- by charlie.mott

- by Melissa Centurio Lopes

- by Anand Akela

- by ScottGu

- by Baek Seungjoo

- by anirudha

- by yaldahhakim

- by Maria Sandu

- by Richard Lefebvre

- by ByronNevins

- by Juan

- by Tim Murphy

- by sxkumar

- by Geertjan

- by DigiMortal

- by HCM-Oracle

< Previous Page | 627 628 629 630 631 632 633 634 635 636 637 638 | Next Page >