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• Big Data – Buzz Words: What is HDFS – Day 8 of 21

  - by Pinal Dave

  In yesterday’s blog post we learned what is MapReduce. In this article we will take a quick look at one of the four most important buzz words which goes around Big Data – HDFS. What is HDFS ? HDFS stands for Hadoop Distributed File System and it is a primary storage system used by Hadoop. It provides high performance access to data across Hadoop clusters. It is usually deployed on low-cost commodity hardware. In commodity hardware deployment server failures are very common. Due to the same reason HDFS is built to have high fault tolerance. The data transfer rate between compute nodes in HDFS is very high, which leads to reduced risk of failure. HDFS creates smaller pieces of the big data and distributes it on different nodes. It also copies each smaller piece to multiple times on different nodes. Hence when any node with the data crashes the system is automatically able to use the data from a different node and continue the process. This is the key feature of the HDFS system. Architecture of HDFS The architecture of the HDFS is master/slave architecture. An HDFS cluster always consists of single NameNode. This single NameNode is a master server and it manages the file system as well regulates access to various files. In additional to NameNode there are multiple DataNodes. There is always one DataNode for each data server. In HDFS a big file is split into one or more blocks and those blocks are stored in a set of DataNodes. The primary task of the NameNode is to open, close or rename files and directory and regulate access to the file system, whereas the primary task of the DataNode is read and write to the file systems. DataNode is also responsible for the creation, deletion or replication of the data based on the instruction from NameNode. In reality, NameNode and DataNode are software designed to run on commodity machine build in Java language. Visual Representation of HDFS Architecture Let us understand how HDFS works with the help of the diagram. Client APP or HDFS Client connects to NameSpace as well as DataNode. Client App access to the DataNode is regulated by NameSpace Node. NameSpace Node allows Client App to connect to the DataNode based by allowing the connection to the DataNode directly. A big data file is divided into multiple data blocks (let us assume that those data chunks are A,B,C and D. Client App will later on write data blocks directly to the DataNode. Client App does not have to directly write to all the node. It just has to write to any one of the node and NameNode will decide on which other DataNode it will have to replicate the data. In our example Client App directly writes to DataNode 1 and detained 3. However, data chunks are automatically replicated to other nodes. All the information like in which DataNode which data block is placed is written back to NameNode. High Availability During Disaster Now as multiple DataNode have same data blocks in the case of any DataNode which faces the disaster, the entire process will continue as other DataNode will assume the role to serve the specific data block which was on the failed node. This system provides very high tolerance to disaster and provides high availability. If you notice there is only single NameNode in our architecture. If that node fails our entire Hadoop Application will stop performing as it is a single node where we store all the metadata. As this node is very critical, it is usually replicated on another clustered as well as on another data rack. Though, that replicated node is not operational in architecture, it has all the necessary data to perform the task of the NameNode in the case of the NameNode fails. The entire Hadoop architecture is built to function smoothly even there are node failures or hardware malfunction. It is built on the simple concept that data is so big it is impossible to have come up with a single piece of the hardware which can manage it properly. We need lots of commodity (cheap) hardware to manage our big data and hardware failure is part of the commodity servers. To reduce the impact of hardware failure Hadoop architecture is built to overcome the limitation of the non-functioning hardware. Tomorrow In tomorrow’s blog post we will discuss the importance of the relational database in Big Data. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Big Data, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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• Oracle Keeps Growing Partner Certifications with Addition of McAfee

  - by Ted Davis

  Viruses stink. Whether it’s the common cold virus, Goatpox virus – yes it exists -- or a computer virus, you name it, viruses stink. When it comes to our computer server infrastructure we all want to make sure our servers are secure from any malware out there. Additionally, installation of anti-virus software is a requirement by many governments and for many enterprises both large and small. Because of the growth of Oracle Linux in their customer base, McAfee recently certified their “McAfee VirusScan Enterprise for Linux” on Oracle Linux.  It delivers always-on, real-time anti-virus protection for Linux environments. Its unique, Linux-based on-access scanner constantly monitors the system for potential attacks. While there have been few viruses found on Linux, you can now feel secure running Oracle Linux in your infrastructure with McAfee on top. We are happy to introduce McAfee into the Oracle Linux family of certified applications. 

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• Is there an open source sports manager project?

  - by massive

  For a long time I've tried to search for an open source manager game, but without any luck. I'm looking for a suitable project for a reference to my own pet project. Features like well designed data model, tournament and fixture generation and understandable match simulation algorithm would be a great bonuses. I'm especially interested in game projects like Hattrick and SI Games' Football Manager, although it is irrelevant what the particular sport is. The project should be preferably web-based as Hattrick is. I've crawled through GitHub and SourceForge, but I found only a few sports simulation projects. Projects, which I have found, were either dead or not fulfilling my wishes. Do you know any open source manager game / fantasy sports game project, which would be available as open source, OR at least any material, which would be useful when building a such project?

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• Platformer Starter Kit - Collision Issues

  - by Cyral

  I'm having trouble with my game that is based off the XNA Platformer starter kit. My game uses smaller tiles (16x16) then the original (32x40) which I'm thinking may be having an effect on collision (Being it needs to be more precise). Standing on the edge of a tile and jumping causes the player to move off the the tile when he lands. And 80% of the time, when the player lands, he goes flying though SOLID tiles in a diagonal fashion. This is very annoying as it is almost impossible to test other features, when spawning and jumping will result in the player landing in another part of the level or falling off the edge completely. The code is as follows: /// <summary> /// Updates the player's velocity and position based on input, gravity, etc. /// </summary> public void ApplyPhysics(GameTime gameTime) { float elapsed = (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds; Vector2 previousPosition = Position; // Base velocity is a combination of horizontal movement control and // acceleration downward due to gravity. velocity.X += movement * MoveAcceleration * elapsed; velocity.Y = MathHelper.Clamp(velocity.Y + GravityAcceleration * elapsed, -MaxFallSpeed, MaxFallSpeed); velocity.Y = DoJump(velocity.Y, gameTime); // Apply pseudo-drag horizontally. if (IsOnGround) velocity.X *= GroundDragFactor; else velocity.X *= AirDragFactor; // Prevent the player from running faster than his top speed. velocity.X = MathHelper.Clamp(velocity.X, -MaxMoveSpeed, MaxMoveSpeed); // Apply velocity. Position += velocity * elapsed; Position = new Vector2((float)Math.Round(Position.X), (float)Math.Round(Position.Y)); // If the player is now colliding with the level, separate them. HandleCollisions(); // If the collision stopped us from moving, reset the velocity to zero. if (Position.X == previousPosition.X) velocity.X = 0; if (Position.Y == previousPosition.Y) velocity.Y = 0; } /// <summary> /// Detects and resolves all collisions between the player and his neighboring /// tiles. When a collision is detected, the player is pushed away along one /// axis to prevent overlapping. There is some special logic for the Y axis to /// handle platforms which behave differently depending on direction of movement. /// </summary> private void HandleCollisions() { // Get the player's bounding rectangle and find neighboring tiles. Rectangle bounds = BoundingRectangle; int leftTile = (int)Math.Floor((float)bounds.Left / Tile.Width); int rightTile = (int)Math.Ceiling(((float)bounds.Right / Tile.Width)) - 1; int topTile = (int)Math.Floor((float)bounds.Top / Tile.Height); int bottomTile = (int)Math.Ceiling(((float)bounds.Bottom / Tile.Height)) - 1; // Reset flag to search for ground collision. isOnGround = false; // For each potentially colliding tile, for (int y = topTile; y <= bottomTile; ++y) { for (int x = leftTile; x <= rightTile; ++x) { // If this tile is collidable, ItemCollision collision = Level.GetCollision(x, y); if (collision != ItemCollision.Passable) { // Determine collision depth (with direction) and magnitude. Rectangle tileBounds = Level.GetBounds(x, y); Vector2 depth = RectangleExtensions.GetIntersectionDepth(bounds, tileBounds); if (depth != Vector2.Zero) { float absDepthX = Math.Abs(depth.X); float absDepthY = Math.Abs(depth.Y); // Resolve the collision along the shallow axis. if (absDepthY < absDepthX || collision == ItemCollision.Platform) { // If we crossed the top of a tile, we are on the ground. if (previousBottom <= tileBounds.Top) isOnGround = true; // Ignore platforms, unless we are on the ground. if (collision == ItemCollision.Impassable || IsOnGround) { // Resolve the collision along the Y axis. Position = new Vector2(Position.X, Position.Y + depth.Y); // Perform further collisions with the new bounds. bounds = BoundingRectangle; } } else if (collision == ItemCollision.Impassable) // Ignore platforms. { // Resolve the collision along the X axis. Position = new Vector2(Position.X + depth.X, Position.Y); // Perform further collisions with the new bounds. bounds = BoundingRectangle; } } } } } // Save the new bounds bottom. previousBottom = bounds.Bottom; } It also tends to jitter a little bit sometimes, I'm solved some of this with some fixes I found here on stackexchange, But Ive only seen one other case of the flying though blocks problem. This question seems to have a similar problem in the video, but mine is more crazy. Again this is a very annoying bug! Any help would be greatly appreciated! EDIT: Speed stuff // Constants for controling horizontal movement private const float MoveAcceleration = 13000.0f; private const float MaxMoveSpeed = 1750.0f; private const float GroundDragFactor = 0.48f; private const float AirDragFactor = 0.58f; // Constants for controlling vertical movement private const float MaxJumpTime = 0.35f; private const float JumpLaunchVelocity = -3500.0f; private const float GravityAcceleration = 3400.0f; private const float MaxFallSpeed = 550.0f; private const float JumpControlPower = 0.14f;

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• Is Silverlight only for eye-candy, or does it have a use in business?

  - by Cyberherbalist

  Granted that Silverlight may make eye-popping websites of great beauty, is there any justification for using it to make practical web applications that have serious business purposes? I'd like to use it (to learn it) for a new assignment I have, which is to build a web-based application that keeps track of the data interfaces used in our organization, but I'm not sure how to justify it, even to myself. Any thoughts on this? If I can't justify it then I will have to build the app using the same old tired straight ASP.NET approach I've used (it seems) a hundred times already.

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• How to get users to commit and collaborate to make a website valuable? [closed]

  - by AzizAG

  I own a website that requires a fairly largish amount of users to collaborate and commit occasionally to make the website valuable, so basically, the website can't be any valuable without users helping me put some content on it. To not get confused, I'm thinking of websites like Wikipedia, Stack Exchange and Yahoo! Answers, most of the content is based on peer effort. How do they actually get users interested and committed in the first place? What are the things I have to do to get users involved in the website and actually help me grow it bigger?

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• Adding user to chroot environment

  - by Neo

  I've created a chroot system in my Ubuntu using schroot and debrootstrap, based on minimal ubuntu. However whenever I can't seem to add a new user into this chroot environment. Here is what happens. I enter schroot as root and add a new user 'Bob'.(Tried both adduser and useradd commands) The username 'Bob' lists up in /etc/passwd file and I can 'su' into the user 'Bob'. So far so good. When I log out of schroot, and re-enter schroot, the user 'Bob' has vanished!! There is no mention of Bob in /etc/passwd either. How do I make the new user permanent?

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• Recommended method towards making custom maps for a 2d game?

  - by Qasim

  I am planning on making a 2D game, however different from my last personal projects I want this one to have enhanced graphics, with custom-designed levels. My previous 2d platformers were tile-based, in which I made a map editor for to create levels. However, I am wondering the best way to implement custom designed maps? For say, some grass is a litter higher than others, flowers here and there, cool drawings and structures along the way, etc. instead of just the same old tiles over and over again. I am thinking but I just can't grasp the idea of how to implement it. I have seen it done in other games and am interested to see how they accomplish it, but can't get my hands on some source code. :(

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• Game of Thrones Style Sigils for Video Games

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  What would the video game families of the Mushroom Kingdom, Hyrule, and more look like if they were represented by Game of Thrones style sigils? Dorkly shows us the House of Mario, Link, and more. Hit up the link below to check out the imagined sigils for a variety of video games families–if you’re in the mood for wallpapers based on the actual Game of Thrones families, makes sure to check out the Extras section for the show on HBO.com. Game of Thrones House Sigils for Video Game Families [via Neatorama] 8 Deadly Commands You Should Never Run on Linux 14 Special Google Searches That Show Instant Answers How To Create a Customized Windows 7 Installation Disc With Integrated Updates

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• Unable to access A class variables in B Class - Unity-Monodevelop

  - by Syed

  I have made a class including variables in Monodevelop which is: public class GridInfo : MonoBehaviour { public float initPosX; public float initPosY; public bool inUse; public int f; public int g; public int h; public GridInfo parent; public int y,x; } Now I am using its class variable in another class, Map.cs which is: public class Map : MonoBehaviour { public static GridInfo[,] Tile = new GridInfo[17, 23]; void Start() { Tile[0,0].initPosX = initPosX; //Line 49 } } Iam not getting any error on runtime, but when I play in unity it is giving me error NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object Map.Start () (at Assets/Scripts/Map.cs:49) I am not inserting this script in any gameobject, as Map.cs will make a GridInfo type array, I have also tried using variables using GetComponent, where is the problem ?

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• SP1 of RadControls for WinForms Q1 2010 released, featuring VS2010 and Client Profile support

  As always, Telerik's plans were closely aligned with Microsoft's release schedule, and we were dedicated to provide VS2010 support even before Visual Studio 2010 was officially launched. Now that the first VS2010 launch event is over, here comes the first of many Telerik Service Packs to support VS2010. This RadControls for WinForms release is the first to provide support for the Client Profile, introduced with .NET3.5, and now default when starting new windows forms projects with VS2010. The Client Profile is a smaller version of the.NET Framework that includes only the assemblies needed for deploying client-based applications, which in turn reduces the size of the application. Basically, the Design time classes are excluded from the Client Profile (CP), because they are only needed for designing and not for running an application. In Q1 2010 SP1 we have moved the designer classes from the run-time assemblies to a new dedicated assembly (Telerik.WinControls.UI.Design.dll), ...Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• List of eCommerce sites that use end-to-end SSL?

  - by Jon Schneider

  My development team is considering implementing an eCommerce site using end-to-end SSL -- that is, every page on the site is accessed via an https:// URL -- rather than the more traditional "mixed mode" where most pages are accessed via http:// and only "secure" pages such as login and credit card entry are redirected to https://. Pros of doing such a "pure SSL" approach include avoidance of some session-hijacking attacks such as Firesheep; cons include performance considerations. My question is: Is anyone aware of a list of eCommerce websites (especially USA-based sites), or even specific websites, that use this end-to-end SSL approach? I'm especially interested in "regular" eCommerce sites rather than banks or other "financial" sites.

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• Force usb to use same device id, instead of new one

  - by m s kumar

  I am having some trouble in automating the task. I am testing some android based mobiles in linux machine. The automation script uses the device id under "/dev/bus/usb/001/"053" it will be always under bus 001 only.. But the dev is will be random like if i insert one mobile then the dev id will be 053, if remove and insert it again then the dev id will be 054.. The problem is, when some tests runs on the device and if device gets rebooted then new dev id is showing for the rebooted one and my scripts failing due to new dev id.. Is there any way to force usb devices to use same dev id instead of new one. So that there will be no issues to my tests even after device reboots. Thanks in advance.

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• BPM 11g - Dynamic Task Assignment with Multi-level Organization Units

  - by Mark Foster

  I've seen several requirements to have a more granular level of task assignment in BPM 11g based on some value in the data passed to the process. Parametric Roles is normally the first port of call to try to satisfy this requirement, but in this blog we will show how a lot of use-cases can be satisfied by the easier to implement and flexible Organization Unit. The Use-Case Task assignment is to an approval group containing several users. At runtime, a location value in the input data determines which of the particular users the task is ultimately assigned to. In this case we use the Demo Community referenced in the SOA Admin Guide, and specifically the "LoanAnalyticGroup" which contains three users; "szweig", "mmitch" & "fkafka". In our scenario we would like to assign a task to "szweig" if the input data specifies that the location is "JapanCentral", to "fkafka" if the location is "JapanNorth" and to "mmitch" if "JapanSouth", and to all of them if the location is "Japan" i.e....   The Process Simple one human task process.... In the output data association of the "Start" activity we need to set the value of the "Organization Unit" predefined variable based on the input data (note that the  predefined variables can only be set on output data associations)....  ...and in the output data association of the human activity we will reset the "Organization Unit" to empty, always good practice to ensure that the Organization Unit will not be used for any subsequent human activities for which we do not require it.... Set Up the Organization Unit  Log in to the BPM Workspace with an administrator user (weblogic/welcome1 in our case) and choose the "Administration" option. Within "Roles" assign the "ProcessOwner" swim-lane for our process to "LoanAnalyticGroup".... Within "Organization Units" we can model our organization.... "Root Organization Unit" as "Japan" and "Child Organization Unit" as "Central", "South" & "North" as shown. As described previously, add user "szweig" to "Central", "mmitch" to "South" and "fkafka" to "North"....   Test the Process Invalid Data  First let us test with invalid data in the input to see what the consequences are, here we use "X" as input.... ...and looking at the instance we can see it has errored.... Organization Unit Root Level Assignment  Now let us see what happens if we have "Japan" in the input data.... ...looking in the "flow trace" we can see that the task has been assigned....  ... but who has the task been assigned to ? Let us look in the BPM Workspace for user "szweig"....  ...and for "mmitch"....  ... and for "fkafka"....  ...so we can see that with an Organization Unit at "Root" level we have successfully assigned the task to all users. Organization Unit Child Level Assignment  Now let us test with "Japan/North" in the input data.... ...and looking in "fkafka" workspace we see the task has been assigned, remember, he was associated with "JapanNorth"....   ... but what about the workspace of "szweig"....  ...no tasks assigned, neither has "mmitch", just as we expected. Summary  We have seen in this blog how to easily implement multi-level dynamic task routing using Organization Units, a common use-case and a simpler solution than Parametric Roles. 

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• Should I always be checking every neighbor when building voxel meshes?

  - by Raven Dreamer

  I've been playing around with Unity3d, seeing if I can make a voxel-based engine out of it (a la Castle Story, or Minecraft). I've dynamically built a mesh from a volume of cubes, and now I'm looking into reducing the number of vertices built into each mesh, as right now, I'm "rendering" vertices and triangles for cubes that are fully hidden within the larger voxel volume. The simple solution is to check each of the 6 directions for each cube, and only add the face to the mesh if the neighboring voxel in that direction is "empty". Parsing a voxel volume is BigO(N^3), and checking the 6 neighbors keeps it BigO(7*N^3)-BigO(N^3). The one thing this results in is a lot of redundant calls, as the same voxel will be polled up to 7 times, just to build the mesh. My question, then, is: Is there a way to parse a cubic volume (and find which faces have neighbors) with fewer redundant calls? And perhaps more importantly, does it matter (as BigO complexity is the same in both cases)?

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• 2D Tile Map for Platformer, XML or SQLite?

  - by Stephen Tierney

  I'm developing a 2D platformer with some uni friends. We've based it upon the XNA Platformer Starter Kit which uses .txt files to store the tile map. While this is simple it does not give us enough control and flexibility with level design. I'm doing some research into whether to store level data in an XML file or in a database like SQLite. Which would be the best for this situation? Do either have any drawbacks (performance etc) compared to the other?

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• How can I factor momentum into my space sim?

  - by Josh Petite

  I am trying my hand at creating a simple 2d physics engine right now, and I'm running into some problems figuring out how to incorporate momentum into movement of a spaceship. If I am moving in a given direction at a certain velocity, I am able to currently update the position of my ship easily (Position += Direction * Velocity). However, if the ship rotates at all, and I recalculate the direction (based on the new angle the ship is facing), and accelerate in that direction, how can I take momentum into account to alter the "line" that the ship travels? Currently the ship changes direction instantaneously and continues at its current velocity in that new direction when I press the thrust button. I want it to be a more gradual turning motion so as to give the impression that the ship itself has some mass. If there is already a nice post on this topic I apologize, but nothing came up in my searches. Let me know if any more information is needed, but I'm hoping someone can easily tell me how I can throw mass * velocity into my game loop update.

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• Mobile Identity Management at SuperValu

  - by Tanu Sood

  While organizations are fast embracing BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) culture to attract and retain best talent, improve productivity, bring agility and drive down costs, SuperValu coined their own term (and trend): TYDH – Take Your Device Home. Yes, SuperValu, a Minn based, 18,000 employees strong, food retailer handed out 2,200 iPads to store directors at locations across the country. The motivation behind this reverse trend? Phillip Black, Director of Identity & Access Management at SuperValu, shared the reasoning behind this trend in his talk at last week’s Oracle OpenWorld 2012. "It gives them productivity tools to better manage their store," says Black. Intrigued? Find out more in this recently published news article. And learn more about Oracle Identity Management 11gR2 mobile- and social- ready sign-on features today. Additional Resources: Press Release: Oracle announces Identity Management 11g Release 2 On-Demand webcast: Identity Management 11gR2 Launch Oracle Magazine: Security on the Move Website: Oracle Identity Management Blog Post: Mobile and Social Sign-on with Oracle Access Management

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• The Recovery: New Challenges for your Supply Chain!

  - by [email protected]

  Nearly half of CFOs are planning to reduce their inventory during the first half of 2010 in part due to supply chain improvements that allow them to hold less product, but also because of reduced demand according to Kate O'Sullivan, Sr Editor at CFO Magazine. Her view is based on this quarter's Duke University Global Business Outlook Survey. Highlights: Employment will be a drag on the economy- full-time employment to increase by 1%. Temp hiring to grow <1%, Outsourcing 4%.  70% of CFOs at SMEs say credit conditions are worse then 12 mos ago - placing strains on inventory growth Asia and China finance execs are more optimistic than their EMEA or US counterparts and expect stronger growth in capital spending with a 16% gain Source: "Slouching Towards Recovery", CFO Magazine, April 2010, pgs 19-20    

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• 3 Trends for SMBs around Social, Mobile, and Sensor

  - by Socially_Aware_Enterprise

  While I often am talking to big companies or discussing enterprise solutions. There are times when individuals ask me about Small or Medium sized business trends.  Interestingly,  the Enterprise Social, Mobile, and Sensor initiatives I regularly discuss are in fact related to even the Mom and Pop storefront. The eco-system of new service players in the Social-Mobile-Sensor space generally emerge developing partnerships with enterprises as they develop and bring economy to scale to their services for the larger market. And of course Oracle has an entire division dedicated for delivering products and support to help emerging companies compete without the need to open an industrial strength credit line.. So here are some trends that we are helping large enterprises to deploy today, but small and medium businesses should be able to take advantage of by the end of this year and starting into 2015. 1) The typical small business is generally "Localized". But the ability to be "Hyper-Localized" will come as location based services become ubiquitous. Many small businesses have one or several storefronts and theirs are typically within a single regional economic footprint. While the internet provides global reach, it will be the businesses that invest in social, mobile and local that will win in the end.  Of course I am a huge SoMoLo evangelist. The SMBs' content and targeting with platforms for Geo-Fencing, Geo-Conquesting and Path-Matching to HHI are all going to be accessible to them, if not for Mobile Apps, then via Mobile messaging in Social Networks that offer it.. Expect to be able to target FaceBook messaging not by city, but by store or mall… This makes being able to be "Hyper-Local" even more important. And with new proximity services coming online more than ever before, SMBs will operate and service customers with pinpoint accuracy right down to where they stand in an aisle. Geo-Conquesting will be huge for small players to place ads when customers pass through competitors regions. Car Dealers are doing this now.. But also of course iBeacons are now very cheap and getting easier to put in retail stores. The ability for sales to happen anywhere in the store via a mobile phone or tablet is huge, as it will give the small shop the flexibility to not have to "Guard the Register" as more or most transactions will be digital. Thus, M-Commerce and T-Commerce will change the job of cashier dramatically.. 2) Intra-Brand Advocacy, the idea now is that rather than just depend on your trusty social media manager and his team, you are going to push more and more individuals with expertise inside the organization to help manage, reach-out, and utilize social channels to manage the incoming questions and answers customers need. While for years CRM was the tool of the enterprise, today CRMs enable this now "Salesforce et al" capability to trickle throughout the company. This gives greater pressure to organize roles, but also flatten out the organization. Internal collaboration around topics and customer needs is going to be the key for SMBs to finally get serious about customer experiences. Their customers are online and in social networks. This includes not just B2C SMBs but also B2B companies as well. Don't believe me? To find the players just use hashtag #SocialSelling and you will see… 3) The Visual Networks will begin to move from Content Aggregators to Content Collaboration platforms, which means Pinterest, Instagram, Vine, & others will begin to move to add more features brands want, first marketing platforms, rather than unique brand partnerships as they do today, but this will open ways for SMBs to engage with clear brand messaging and metrics. Eventually providing more "Collaboration" between Brand and Consumer.. Don't think for a minute Facebook bought Oculus Rift so you could see your timeline in 3-D. The Social Networks I advise customers to invest in are ones that are audio and visual intrinsically. Players from SoundCloud to Pinterest are deploying ways for brands to harness their interactive visual or audio based social networks to sell ad units aka brand messaging. While the Social Media revolution is going on, the emphasis was on the social, today it more and more about the media in social, that enterprises soon small and medium businesses will be connected to. 

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• Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS breaking down and sluggish

  - by ahamza

  I am in the process of switching from Windows to a Linux based system and am currently deciding between distributions...I am currently trying Ubuntu as WUBI. I find that my experience is not very smooth and streamlined for example, crash-reports, bugs, applications taking time to run etc etc (this in spite of the fact that I am very patient and am constantly researching solution to different driver and application issues). Was wondering if this is because I am running through NTFS right now or is it just like this? Looking to switch to Linux because of its opensource nature, interest in software development in college as well as maximizing the potential of my machine. I am running an AMD quadcore-x64 2.2GHz, 6GB RAM and 750 GB HDD on an HP G6 notebook. I would appreciate any honest opinions.

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• Oracle RightNow CX for Good Customer Experiences

  - by Andreea Vaduva

  Oracle RightNow CX is all about the customer experience, it’s about understanding what drives a good interaction and it’s about delivering a solution which works for our customers and by extension, their customers. One of the early guiding principles of Oracle RightNow was an 8-point strategy to providing good customer experiences. Establish a knowledge foundation Empowering the customer Empower employees Offer multi-channel choice Listen to the customer Design seamless experiences Engage proactively Measure and improve continuously The application suite provides all of the tools necessary to deliver a rewarding, repeatable and measurable relationship between business and customer. The Knowledge Authoring tool provides gap analysis, WYSIWIG editing (and includes HTML rich content for non-developers), multi-level categorisation, permission based publishing and Web self-service publishing. Oracle RightNow Customer Portal, is a complete web application framework that enables businesses to control their own end-user page branding experience, which in turn will allow customers to self-serve. The Contact Centre Experience Designer builds a combination of workspaces, agent scripting and guided assistances into a Desktop Workflow. These present an agent with the tools they need, at the time they need them, providing even the newest and least experienced advisors with consistently accurate and efficient information, whilst guiding them through the complexities of internal business processes. Oracle RightNow provides access points for customers to feedback about specific knowledge articles or about the support site in general. The system will generate ‘incidents’ based on the scoring of the comments submitted. This makes it easy to view and respond to customer feedback. It is vital, more now than ever, not to under-estimate the power of the social web – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube – they have the ability to cause untold amounts of damage to businesses with a single post – witness musician Dave Carroll and his protest song on YouTube, posted in response to poor customer services from an American airline. The first day saw 150,000 views and is currently at 12,011,375. The Times reported that within 4 days of the post, the airline’s stock price fell by 10 percent, which represented a cost to shareholders of $180 million dollars. It is a universally acknowledged fact, that when customers are unhappy, they will not come back, and, generally speaking, it only takes one bad experience to lose a customer. The idea that customer loyalty can be regained by using social media channels was the subject of a 2011 Survey commissioned by RightNow and conducted by Harris Interactive. The survey discovered that 68% of customers who posted a negative review about a holiday on a social networking site received a response from the business. It further found that 33% subsequently posted a positive review and 34% removed the original negative review. Cloud Monitor provides the perfect mechanism for seeing what is being said about a business on public Facebook pages, Twitter or YouTube posts; it allows agents to respond proactively – either by creating an Oracle RightNow incident or by using the same channel as the original post. This leaves step 8 – Measuring and Improving: How does a business know whether it’s doing the right thing? How does it know if its customers are happy? How does it know if its staff are being productive? How does it know if its staff are being effective? Cue Oracle RightNow Analytics – fully integrated across the entire platform – Service, Marketing and Sales – there are in excess of 800 standard reports. If this were not enough, a large proportion of the database has been made available via the administration console, allowing users without any prior database experience to write their own reports, format them and schedule them for e-mail delivery to a distribution list. It handles the complexities of table joins, and allows for the manipulation of data with ease. Oracle RightNow believes strongly in the customer owning their solution, and to provide the best foundation for success, Oracle University can give you the RightNow knowledge and skills you need. This is a selection of the courses offered: RightNow Customer Service Administration Rel 12.02 (3 days) Available as In Class and Live Virtual Class (Release 11.11 is available as In Class, Live Virtual Class and Training On Demand) This course familiarises users with the tasks and concepts needed to configure and maintain their system. RightNow Customer Portal Designer and Contact Center Experience Designer Administration Rel 12.02 (2 days) Available as In Class and Live Virtual Class (Release 11.11 is available as In Class, Live Virtual Class and Training On Demand) This course introduces basic CP structure and how to make changes to the look, feel and behaviour of their self-service pages RightNow Analytics Rel 12.02 (2 days) Available as In Class, Live Virtual Class and Training On Demand (Release 11.11 is available as In Class and Live Virtual Class) This course equips users with the skills necessary to understand data supplied by standard reports and to create custom reports RightNow Integration and Customization For Developers Rel 12.02 (5-days) Available as In Class and Live Virtual Class (Release 11.11 is available as In Class, Live Virtual Class and Training On Demand) This course is for experienced web developers and offers an introduction to Add-In development using the Desktop Add-In Framework and introduces the core knowledge that developers need to begin integrating Oracle RightNow CX with other systems A full list of courses offered can be found on the Oracle University website. For more information and course dates please get in contact with your local Oracle University team. On top of the Service components, the suite also provides marketing tools, complex survey creation and tracking and sales functionality. I’m a fan of the application, and I think I’ve made that clear: It’s completely geared up to providing customers with support at point of need. It can be configured to meet even the most stringent of business requirements. Oracle RightNow is passionate about, and committed to, providing the best customer experience possible. Oracle RightNow CX is the application that makes it possible. About the Author: Sarah Anderson worked for RightNow for 4 years in both in both a consulting and training delivery capacity. She is now a Senior Instructor with Oracle University, delivering the following Oracle RightNow courses: RightNow Customer Service Administration RightNow Analytics RightNow Customer Portal Designer and Contact Center Experience Designer Administration RightNow Marketing and Feedback

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• Size limit while using UICollectionView as tiled map for iOS game?

  - by Alexander Winn

  I'm working on a turn-based strategy game for iOS, (picture Civilization 2 as a template example), and I'm considering using a UICollectionView as my game map. Each cell would be a tile, and I could use the "didSelectCell" method to handle player interaction with each tile. Here's my question: I know that UICollectionViewCells are dequeued and reused by the OS, so does that mean that the map could support an effectively infinitely-large map, so long as only a few cells are onscreen at a time? However many cells were onscreen would be held in memory, and obviously the data source would take up some memory, but would my offscreen map be limited to a certain size or could it be enormous so long as the number of cells visible at any one time wasn't too much for the device to handle? Basically, is there any memory weight to offscreen cells, or do only visible cells have any impact? Also, does a UICollectionView seem like a bad idea for a game map, in a way I haven't thought of yet? It seems like it work well, but I haven't tried it yet so any thoughts are welcome.

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• Two free SQL Server events I'll be presenting at in UK. Come and say hi!

  - by Mladen Prajdic

  SQLBits: April 7th - April 9th 2011 in Brighton, UK Free community event on Saturday (April 9th) with a paid conference day on Friday (April 8th) and a Pre Conference day full of day long seminars (April 7th). It'll be a huge event with over 800 attendees and over 20 MVPs. I'll be presenting on Saturday April 9th.     SQL in the City: July 15th 2011 in London, UK One day of free SQL Server training sponsored by Redgate. Other MVP's that'll be presenting there are Steve Jones (website|twitter), Brad McGehee (blog|twitter) and Grant Fritchey (blog|twitter)   At both conferences I'll be presenting about database testing. In the sessions I'll cover a few things from my book The Red Gate Guide to SQL Server Team based Development like what do we need for testing, how to go about it, what are some of the obstacles we have to overcome, etc… If you're around there come and say Hi!

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• Application Development: Python or Java (or PHP)

  - by luckysmack

  I'm looking to get into application development, such as Facebook or Android apps and games. I am doing this for fun and to learn. Once my skills are to par I would like to have some side income from the apps, but I'm not banking on living off that (just so you know where I'm coming from and know what my end goals are). Currently I know and am familiar with PHP and frameworks such as cakephp and yii. However, I have been wanting to learn another language to broaden my horizons and to become a better developer. So I have narrowed it down to 2 languages. Python, and Java (I can already hear people cringing at the difference in the languages I have chosen, but I have some reasons). Python: closer to PHP that Java. Cross platformability. Also great as a general scripting language and has many file system level benefits that PHP does not. Cleaner syntax, readability, blah blah and the list goed on. Python will work great for cross platform apps and can be run on many OS's and is supported by Facebook for app development. But there is no support on Android (for full fledged apps). Java: a much stronger typed language, very robust community and corporate backing. Knowing Java is also good for personal marketability for enterprises, if you're into that. The main benefit here is that Java can write apps natively for Android and the apps can be ported for web versions to play on Facebook. So while I have seen many developers prefer Java over the two, Java has this significant advantage, where I can market my apps in both markets and in the future build more potential income. But like I said it is for fun. While money isn't the goal, it would still be nice. PHP: I'm putting this here because I know it already, and I'm sure a case could be made for it. It obviously works great for Facebook but like Python does not do so well on android. While it's mostly the realm of 'application development' that appeals to me, I do find Android apps fairly interesting and something that has a ton of potential to. But then again Facebook has a ton more users and the apps can also potentially be more immersive (desktop vs. mobile). So this is why I'm kinda stuck on what route to choose. Python for Facebook and web apps, with likely faster development to production times, or Java which can be developed for any of the platforms to make apps. Side note: I'm not really trying to get into 3D development, mostly 2D. And I also want to make an app with real-time play (websockets, etc). Someone mentioned node, js to me for that but Python seems to be more globally versatile for my goals. So, to anyone that does Facebook or Android development in either language: what do you suggest? Any input is valuable and I do appreciate it. And sorry for being long winded. EDIT: as mentioned in one of the answers, my primary goal is gaming. Although I do have some plans for non gaming apps such as general web based and desktop based ones. But gaming is my main goal with the possibility of income. EDIT: Another consideration could be Jython. Writing Python code which is converted into Java bytecode. This would allow the ability to do Android apps using Python. I could be wrong though, I'm still looking into it. Update 1-26-11: I recently acquired a new job which required I learn .NET using C#. Im sure some of you are cringing already but I really like the whole system and how it all works together between desktop and web development. But, as I am still interested in Python very much, and after some research I have decided I will learn Python as well as the IronPython implementation for .NET. But (again: I know...) since .NET is mostly a Windows thing and not as cross-compatible as I like, I will be learning Mono which is a cross platform implementation of .NET where I can use what I learn at work using C# and what I want to learn, Python/IronPython. So while learning and writing C#/.NET @ work I will be learning Python - Mono - Iron Python for what I want to do personally. And the benefit of them all being very closely related will help me out a lot, I think. What do you guys think? I almost feel like that should be another question, but there's not much of a question. Either way, you guys gave very helpful input.

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