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• It's Here! Visual Studio 2010 and ASP.NET 4.0 Ship

  Today Microsoft released Visual Studio 2010 and ASP.NET 4.0. I've been using the RC version of Visual Studio 2010 quite a bit for the past couple of months and have really grown to like it. It has a host of features and enhancements that improve developer productivity, from improved IntelliSense to better multiple monitor support. Plus there's something about the user experience that, to me, makes it feel better than Visual Studio 2008. I don't know if it's the new blue color motif or what, but the IDE seems more modern looking and more responsive to my mouse movements and other input. Anyway, if you've not yet downloaded Visual Studio 2010 and ASP.NET 4.0, why not? As with previous versions of Visual Studio there's a free Express Edition and VS2010 and ASP.NET 4.0 runs side-by-side with earlier versions of Visual Studio and ASP.NET. And with Visual Studio 2010's multi-targeting you can even use VS2010 as your development editor for ASP.NET 2.0 and ASP.NET 3.5 web applications. (Although be forewarned if you have multiple developers working on the application that the project files in VS2010 and earlier versions of Visual Studio differ.) This week's article on 4Guys explores my favorite new features of Visual Studio 2010. Here's an excerpt: The Visual Studio 2010 user experience is noticeably different than with previous versions. Some of the changes are cosmetic - gone is the decades-old red and orange color scheme, having been replaced with blues and purples - while others are more substantial. For instance, the Visual Studio 2010 shell was rewritten from the ground up to use Microsoft's Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). In addition to an updated user experience, Visual Studio introduces an array of new features designed to improve developer productivity. There are new tools for searching for files, types, and class members; it's now easier than ever to use IntelliSense; the Toolbox can be searched using the keyboard; and you can use a single editor - Visual Studio 2010 - to work on. This article explores some of the new features in Visual Studio 2010. It is not meant to be an exhaustive list, but rather highlights those features that I, as an ASP.NET developer, find most useful in my line of work. Read on to learn more! And, in closing, here are some helpful VS2010 and ASP.NET 4.0 links: One click installation for ASP.NET 4.0, Visual Web Developer 2010, .NET Framework 4.0, and ASP.NET MVC 2 Eight Quick Hit videos showing some of the cool new VS2010 features VS2010 and ASP.NET 4.0 Release Announcement with some great info/links from none other than Scott Guthrie Happy Programming!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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• EBS – ATG Webcast 9/11 - 9/12

  - by cwarticki

  EBS – ATG Webcast in September 2012 EBS – Multiple Language Support (MLS) Agenda :EBS is MLS Ready                                                                                 NLS / MLS Basic ArchitectureNLS / MLS InstallationNLS / MLS Configuration Settings                                                                    TroubleshootingQuestion and AnswersEMEA Session : September 11, 2012 at 09:00 UK / 10:00 CET / 13:30 India / 17:00 Japan / 18:00 Sydney (Australia) Details & Registration : Note 1480084.1 Direct link to register in WebEx US Session : September 12, 2012 at 18:00 UK / 19:00 CET / 10:00 AM Pacific / 11:00 AM Mountain/ 01:00 PM Eastern ·      Details & Registration : Note 1480085.1 ·      Direct link to register in WebEx ·         Schedules, recordings and the Presentations of the Advisor Webcast drove under the EBS Applications Technology area can be found in Note 1186338.1. ·         Current Schedules of Advisor Webcast for all Oracle Products can be found on Note 740966.1 ·         Post Presentation Recordings of the Advisor Webcasts for all Oracle Products can be found on Note 740964.1 If you have any question about the schedules or if you have a suggestion for an Advisor Webcast to be planned in future, please send an E-Mail to Ruediger Ziegler.

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• SFX Played Once per Collision or Hit

  - by David Dimalanta

  I have a question about using Box2D (engine for LibGDX used to make realistic physics). I observed on the code that I've made for the physics here below: @Override public boolean touchUp(int screenX, int screenY, int pointer, int button) { // TODO Touch Up Event if(is_Next_Fruit_Touched) { BodyEditorLoader Fruit_Loader = new BodyEditorLoader(Gdx.files.internal("Shape_Physics/Fruity Physics.json")); Fruit_BD.type = BodyType.DynamicBody; Fruit_BD.position.set(x, y); FixtureDef Fruit_FD = new FixtureDef(); // --> Allows you to make the object's physics. Fruit_FD.density = 1.0f; Fruit_FD.friction = 0.7f; Fruit_FD.restitution = 0.2f; MassData mass = new MassData(); mass.mass = 5f; Fruit_Body[n] = world.createBody(Fruit_BD); Fruit_Body[n].setActive(true); // --> Let your dragon fall. Fruit_Body[n].setMassData(mass); Fruit_Body[n].setGravityScale(1.0f); System.out.println("Eggs... " + n); Fruit_Loader.attachFixture(Fruit_Body[n], Body, Fruit_FD, Fruit_IMG.getWidth()); Fruit_Origin = Fruit_Loader.getOrigin(Body, Fruit_IMG.getWidth()).cpy(); is_Next_Fruit_Touched = false; up = y; Gdx.app.log("Initial Y-coordinate", "Y at " + up); //Once it's touched, the next fruit will set to drag. if(n < 50) { n++; }else{ System.exit(0); } } return true; } Now, I'm thinking which part o line should I implement for the sound effects. My objectives to make SFX played once for every collision (Or should I say "SFX played once per collision"?) on the following: SFX played once if they hit on the objects of its kind. (e.g. apple vs. apple) SFX played once on a different sound when it hit on the ground. (e.g. apple land on the mud) Take note that I'm using Box2D for the Java programming version thanks to LibGDX via Box2D engine and I edited the physics body using Physics Body Editor before I implement it to code. I tried to check every available methods for body, fixture definition, or body definition to code for the SFX when hit but it seems only for the gravity and weight. Is there possibly available on the document for SFX played when collision happens if possible?

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• JavaOne Latin America 2011: Keynotes, Sessions, Hands-on Lab, Geek Bike Ride, etc.

  - by arungupta

  After a very successful JavaOne San Francisco, the first JavaOne on the road for 2011 is heading to Latin America next week. There are 59 sessions delivered by several rock star speakers and with 60% sessions delivered by the local community. There are strategy, technical and community keynotes. The community keynote on Thursday will particularly be lot of fun with appearances from Java Champions, JUG leaders, jHome, and several others. Also check out the Exhibitor Floor Plan and don't forget to Register! The complete session schedule gives an overview for the list of technical sessions and hands-on lab. There are several Java EE, GlassFish, and WebLogic sessions and are highlighted below: Tuesday, Dec 6 Oracle WebLogic Server XML-Free Programming: Java Server and Client Development without <> Java EE Application in Production: Tips and Tricks to achieve zero downtime Web Applications and Wicket Scala on GlassFish and Java EE 6 REST and Java best practices, issues and solutions for the Enterprise Building a RESTful Web Application with JAX-RS and Ext JS 4 Wednesday, Dec 7 Oracle GlassFish Server in the Virtual World JAX-RS 2.0: What's in JSR 339 ? JSF 343: What's coming in Java Message Service 2.0 ? The Great News of JSF 2.0! Thursday, Dec 8 Servlet 3.1 Update Develop, Deploy, and Monitor a Java EE 6 Application with Clustered GlassFish 3.1 Migrating from EJB/SOAP to REST with JAX-RS: The Case of the Central Bank of Brazil GlassFish REST Administration Back End: An Insider look at a real REST Application Scripting and Agile Java EE Applications with Jython And this is Brazil so a fun element is important. There are the usual Caiprihinas, Churrascaria, late night social dinners, community engagement, and multiple other fun activities. Fabiane Nardon and SOUJava gang are also organizing a Geek Bike Ride on the Sunday (Dec 4th) before JavaOne. The 20k ride (map) starts at 7am and goes through the streets of Sao Paulo. This is an opportunity to meet some of the JavaOne speakers and attendees outside the conference. They've even designed a t-shirt and 32 geeks have signed up so far. I'm glad my discussion with Fabiane during FISL early this year for arranging this bike ride is finally taking shape! I'm definitely looking forward to it and will be bringing nice fruity Odwalla bars for all the riders. Be there to ride with me and many others :-) Stay updated by following @oracledobrasil and @javaoneconf. I'll be there, will you ? Don't wait and register now! And in case you are interested in reading about the experience from last year ... it was lot of fun! Just check out a collage of pictures yourself ... And the complete album at:

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• Multiple country-specific domains or one global domain [closed]

  - by CJM

  Possible Duplicate: How should I structure my urls for both SEO and localization? My company currently has its main (English) site on a .com domain with a .co.uk alias. In addition, we have separate sites for certain other countries - these are also hosted in the UK but are distinct sites with a country-specific domain names (.de, .fr, .se, .es), and the sites have differing amounts of distinct but overlapping content, For example, the .es site is entirely in Spanish and has a page for every section of the UK site but little else. Whereas the .de site has much more content (but still less than the UK site), in German, and geared towards our business focus in that country. The main point is that the content in the additional sites is a subset of the UK, is translated into the local language, and although sometimes is simply only a translated version of UK content, it is usually 'tweaked' for the local market, and in certain areas, contains unique content. The other sites get a fraction of the traffic of the UK site. This is perfectly understandable since the biggest chunk of work comes from the UK, and we've been established here for over 30 years. However, we are wanting to build up our overseas business and part of that is building up our websites to support this. The Question: I posed a suggestion to the business that we might consider consolidating all our websites onto the .com domain but with /en/de/fr/se/etc sections, as plenty of other companies seem to do. The theory was that the non-english sites would benefit from the greater reputation of the parent .com domain, and that all the content would be mutually supporting - my fear is that the child domains on their own are too small to compete on their own compared to competitors who are established in these countries. Speaking to an SEO consultant from my hosting company, he feels that this move would have some benefit (for the reasons mentioned), but they would likely be significantly outweighed by the loss of the benefits of localised domains. Specifically, he said that since the Panda update, and particularly the two sets of changes this year, that we would lose more than we would gain. Having done some Panda research since, I've had my eyes opened on many issues, but curiously I haven't come across much that mentions localised domain names, though I do question whether Google would see it as duplicated content. It's not that I disagree with the consultant, I just want to know more before I make recommendations to my company. What is the prevailing opinion in this case? Would I gain anything from consolidating country-specific content onto one domain? Would Google see this as duplicate content? Would there be an even greater penalty from the loss of country-specific domains? And is there anything else I can do to help support the smaller, country-specific domains?

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• Playing with F#

  - by mroberts

  Project Euler is a awesome site.   When working with a new language it can be tricky to find problems that need solving, that are more complex than "Hello World" and simpler than a full blown application. Project Euler gives use just that, cool and thought provoking problems that usually don't take days to solve.  I've solved a number of questions with C# and some with Java.  BTW, I used Java because it had BigInteger support before .Net. A couple weeks ago, back when winter had a firm grip on Columbus, OH, I began playing (researching) with F#.  I began with Problem #1 from Project Euler.  I started by looking at my solution in C#. Here is my solution in C#. 1: using System; 2: using System.Collections.Generic; 3:   4: namespace Problem001 5: { 6: class Program 7: { 8: static void Main(string[] args) 9: { 10: List<int> values = new List<int>(); 11:   12: for (int i = 1; i < 1000; i++) 13: { 14: if (i % 3 == 0 || i % 5 == 0) 15: values.Add(i); 16: } 17: int total = 0; 18:   19: values.ForEach(v => total += v); 20:   21: Console.WriteLine(total); 22: Console.ReadKey(); 23: } 24: } 25: }   Now, after much tweaking and learning, here is my solution in F#.   1: open System 2:   3: let calc n = 4: [1..n] 5: |> List.map (fun x -> if (x % 3 = 0 || x % 5 = 0) then x else 0) 6: |> List.sum 7:   8: let main() = 9: calc 999 10: |> printfn "result = %d" 11: Console.ReadKey(true) |> ignore 12:   13: main() Just this little example highlights some cool things about F#. Type inference. F# infers the type of a value.  In the C# code above we declare a number of variables, the list, and a couple ints.  F# does not require this, it infers the calc (a function) accepts a int and returns a int. Great built in functionality for Lists.  List.map for example. BTW, I don’t think I’m spilling the beans by giving away the code for Problem 1.  It by far is the easiest question, IMHO, solved by 92,000+ people. Next I’ll look into writing a class library with F#.

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• The Uganda .NET Usergroup meeting for January 2011 - a look back.

  - by Malisa L. Ncube

  We had a very interesting meeting on Friday 28th last week. We had 10 attendees and two speakers. The first topic presented was Cloud Computing, presented by Allan Rwakatungu @arwakatungu who works with MTN Uganda. He gave a very brilliant outline of how Cloud computing and service oriented applications had begun changing the platform for operating business and the costs it saves because of scalability and elasticity. He went on to demonstrate the steps you would take if you are beginning a new Windows Azure project. He explained the history and evolution of the Windows Azure, SQL Azure and cloud services offered by Amazon and google.com. The attendees had many questions to ask (obviously), but they were all answered very well. We once again thank Allan, for taking time to prepare the presentation and demonstrating for us. We recorded a video on the entire presentation and after doing some editing we will publish it. One wish which was echoed by most members was that Microsoft should open the cloud services and development for Africa. Microsoft currently does not even have servers here in Africa and so far, that does not put African developers in the same platform as other developers in other continents. Now is the time considering the improvements in network speeds and joining of the Seacom network and broadband.   I presented on Parallelism and Multithreading using .NET 4.0, I also gave some details on the language changes in C# 5.0 and the async keyword and the TaskEx class. I explained the Task, Scheduling of parallel tasks and demonstrated problems that may arise from using parallelism inappropriately. I also demonstrated the performance improvements that may be achieved by taking advantage of multi-core processors. You may download the presentation on Parallelism and Multi-threading from here. The resolution of the meeting was that we should meet more than once a month and begin other activities which should be more fun. e.g. Geek Dinner, Geek Beer or CodeCamp. Based on that we all agreed we shall have a mid-month meeting starting from February. Cheers folks! del.icio.us Tags: .net,usergroup,cloud computing,parallelism,multi-threading

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• Alternatives to multiple inheritance for my architecture (NPCs in a Realtime Strategy game)?

  - by Brettetete

  Coding isn't that hard actually. The hard part is to write code that makes sense, is readable and understandable. So I want to get a better developer and create some solid architecture. So I want to do create an architecture for NPCs in a video-game. It is a Realtime Strategy game like Starcraft, Age of Empires, Command & Conquers, etc etc.. So I'll have different kinds of NPCs. A NPC can have one to many abilities (methods) of these: Build(), Farm() and Attack(). Examples: Worker can Build() and Farm() Warrior can Attack() Citizen can Build(), Farm() and Attack() Fisherman can Farm() and Attack() I hope everything is clear so far. So now I do have my NPC Types and their abilities. But lets come to the technical / programmatical aspect. What would be a good programmatic architecture for my different kinds of NPCs? Okay I could have a base class. Actually I think this is a good way to stick with the DRY principle. So I can have methods like WalkTo(x,y) in my base class since every NPC will be able to move. But now lets come to the real problem. Where do I implement my abilities? (remember: Build(), Farm() and Attack()) Since the abilities will consists of the same logic it would be annoying / break DRY principle to implement them for each NPC (Worker,Warrior, ..). Okay I could implement the abilities within the base class. This would require some kind of logic that verifies if a NPC can use ability X. IsBuilder, CanBuild, .. I think it is clear what I want to express. But I don't feel very well with this idea. This sounds like a bloated base class with too much functionality. I do use C# as programming language. So multiple inheritance isn't an opinion here. Means: Having extra base classes like Fisherman : Farmer, Attacker won't work.

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• Harnessing Business Events for Predictive Decision Making - part 1 / 3

  - by Sanjeev Sharma

  Businesses have long relied on data mining to elicit patterns and forecast future demand and supply trends. Improvements in computing hardware, specifically storage and compute capacity, have significantly enhanced the ability to store and analyze mountains of data in ever shrinking time-frames. Nevertheless, the reality is that data growth is outpacing storage capacity by a factor of two and computing power is still very much bounded by Moore's Law, doubling only every 18 months.Faced with this data explosion, businesses are exploring means to develop human brain-like capabilities in their decision systems (including BI and Analytics) to make sense of the data storm, in other words business events, in real-time and respond pro-actively rather than re-actively. It is more like having a little bit of the right information just a little bit before hand than having all of the right information after the fact. To appreciate this thought better let's first understand the workings of the human brain.Neuroscience research has revealed that the human brain is predictive in nature and that talent is nothing more than exceptional predictive ability. The cerebral-cortex, part of the human brain responsible for cognition, thought, language etc., comprises of five layers. The lowest layer in the hierarchy is responsible for sensory perception i.e. discrete, detail-oriented tasks whereas each of the above layers increasingly focused on assembling higher-order conceptual models. Information flows both up and down the layered memory hierarchy. This allows the conceptual mental-models to be refined over-time through experience and repetition. Secondly, and more importantly, the top-layers are able to prime the lower layers to anticipate certain events based on the existing mental-models thereby giving the brain a predictive ability. In a way the human brain develops a "memory of the future", some sort of an anticipatory thinking which let's it predict based on occurrence of events in real-time. A higher order of predictive ability stems from being able to recognize the lack of certain events. For instance, it is one thing to recognize the beats in a music track and another to detect beats that were missed, which involves a higher order predictive ability.Existing decision systems analyze historical data to identify patterns and use statistical forecasting techniques to drive planning. They are similar to the human-brain in that they employ business rules very much like mental-models to chunk and classify information. However unlike the human brain existing decision systems are unable to evolve these rules automatically (AI still best suited for highly specific tasks) and  predict the future based on real-time business events. Mistake me not,  existing decision systems remain vital to driving long-term and broader business planning. For instance, a telco will still rely on BI and Analytics software to plan promotions and optimize inventory but tap into business events enabled predictive insight to identify specifically which customers are likely to churn and engage with them pro-actively. In the next post, i will depict the technology components that enable businesses to harness real-time events and drive predictive decision making.

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• How can I make a universal construction more efficient?

  - by VF1

  A "universal construction" is a wrapper class for a sequential object that enables it to be linearized (a strong consistency condition for concurrent objects). For instance, here's an adapted wait-free construction, in Java, from [1], which presumes the existence of a wait-free queue that satisfies the interface WFQ (which only requires one-time consensus between threads) and assumes a Sequential interface: public interface WFQ<T> // "FIFO" iteration { int enqueue(T t); // returns the sequence number of t Iterable<T> iterateUntil(int max); // iterates until sequence max } public interface Sequential { // Apply an invocation (method + arguments) // and get a response (return value + state) Response apply(Invocation i); } public interface Factory<T> { T generate(); } // generate new default object public interface Universal extends Sequential {} public class SlowUniversal implements Universal { Factory<? extends Sequential> generator; WFQ<Invocation> wfq = new WFQ<Invocation>(); Universal(Factory<? extends Sequential> g) { generator = g; } public Response apply(Invocation i) { int max = wfq.enqueue(i); Sequential s = generator.generate(); for(Invocation invoc : wfq.iterateUntil(max)) s.apply(invoc); return s.apply(i); } } This implementation isn't very satisfying, however, since it presumes determinism of a Sequential and is really slow. I attempted to add memory recycling: public interface WFQD<T> extends WFQ<T> { T dequeue(int n); } // dequeues only when n is the tail, else assists other threads public interface CopyableSequential extends Sequential { CopyableSequential copy(); } public class RecyclingUniversal implements Universal { WFQD<CopyableSequential> wfqd = new WFQD<CopyableSequential>(); Universal(CopyableSequential init) { wfqd.enqueue(init); } public Response apply(Invocation i) { int max = wfqd.enqueue(i); CopyableSequential cs = null; int ctr = max; for(CopyableSequential csq : wfq.iterateUntil(max)) if(--max == 0) cs = csq.copy(); wfqd.dequeue(max); return cs.apply(i); } } Here are my specific questions regarding the extension: Does my implementation create a linearizable multi-threaded version of a CopyableSequential? Is it possible extend memory recycling without extending the interface (perhaps my new methods trivialize the problem)? My implementation only reduces memory when a thread returns, so can this be strengthened? [1] provided an implementation for WFQ<T>, not WFQD<T> - one does exist, though, correct? [1] Herlihy and Shavit, The Art of Multiprocessor Programming.

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• But what version is the database now?

  - by BuckWoody

  When you upgrade your system to SQL Server 2008 R2, you’ll know that the instance is at that version by using the standard commands like SELECT @@VERSION or EXEC xp_msver. My system came back with this info when I typed those: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 (RTM) - 10.50.1600.1 (Intel X86)   Apr  2 2010 15:53:02   Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation  Developer Edition on Windows NT 6.0 <X86> (Build 6002: Service Pack 2) (Hypervisor) Index Name Internal_Value Character_Value 1 ProductName NULL Microsoft SQL Server 2 ProductVersion 655410 10.50.1600.1 3 Language 1033 English (United States) 4 Platform NULL NT INTEL X86 5 Comments NULL SQL 6 CompanyName NULL Microsoft Corporation 7 FileDescription NULL SQL Server Windows NT 8 FileVersion NULL 2009.0100.1600.01 ((KJ_RTM).100402-1540 ) 9 InternalName NULL SQLSERVR 10 LegalCopyright NULL Microsoft Corp. All rights reserved. 11 LegalTrademarks NULL Microsoft SQL Server is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. 12 OriginalFilename NULL SQLSERVR.EXE 13 PrivateBuild NULL NULL 14 SpecialBuild 104857601 NULL 15 WindowsVersion 393347078 6.0 (6002) 16 ProcessorCount 1 1 17 ProcessorActiveMask 1 1 18 ProcessorType 586 PROCESSOR_INTEL_PENTIUM 19 PhysicalMemory 2047 2047 (2146934784) 20 Product ID NULL NULL   But a database properties are separate from the Instance. After an upgrade, you always want to make sure that the compatibility options (which have much to do with how NULLs and other objects are treated) is at what you expect. For the most part, as long as the application can handle it, I set my compatibility levels to the latest version. For SQL Server 2008, that was “10.0” or “10”. You can do this with the ALTER DATABASE command or you can just right-click the database and select “Properties” and then “Database Options” in SQL Server Management Studio. To check the database compatibility level, I use this query: SELECT name, cmptlevel FROM sys.sysdatabases When I did that this morning I saw that the databases (all of them) were at 10.0 – not 10.5 like the Instance. That’s expected – we didn’t revise the database format up with the Instance for this particular release. Didn’t want to catch you by surprise on that. While your databases should be at the “proper” level for your situation, you can’t rely on the compatibility level to indicate the Instance level. More info on the ALTER DATABASE command in SQL Server 2008 R2 is here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb510680(SQL.105).aspx Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Looking for an ultra portable laptop for Ubuntu

  - by prule

  Hi, I'm in the market for a new laptop, and portability is important since I really only use it when I'm travelling to and from work - primarily for programming. I've been searching high and low for something like this: less than 2kg hopefully Intel i5 (but negotiable) NO dvd drive - just don't need it 4G ram either 7200rpm disk or SSD (ssd preferable) 13 inch screen not too pricey (MacBook Air is about $1700 AUD) available in Australia The Dell Inspiron 13z and Lenovo Edge 13 look close, but I've not found anything that says I'm not going to have a fight with compatibility. The MacBook Air 13 looks like the PERFECT hardware, but I'm afraid it will just be easier to run MacOS than Ubuntu. I want to stay with Ubuntu, but the MacBook Air is only $1700 so I'm in danger of becoming another apple fanboi if I can't find anything competitive. Going through all the sites looking for stuff has been a huge waste of time System 76 doesn't deliver to Australia http://www.linux-laptop.net/ and http://www.linlap.com/ are hard work and not confidence inspiring http://www.vgcomputing.com.au/nsintro.html is hard work again, searching for every laptop they say has excellent compatibility on the web to find out what spec it is http://zareason.com/shop/Strata-Pro-13.html (at $1345 USD) looks interesting, but I've got no idea how much I'll get stung by customs importing Dell Inspiron 13z with i5, 4G, 320 7200rpm disk, ATI Mobility Radeon HD5430 - 1GB, Dell Wireless 1501 802.11b/g/n @ $1200 AUD seems like the only competitor but is it compatible? (Dell support offer no opinion - as far as they are concerned they only have 2 models that are certified for ubuntu) Am I worrying too much about the compatibility? Should I just go with Dell? Or switch to MacOS? (It would be good to have a searchable database that had the full machine specs, and compatibility - I'm thinking about building something... but I don't have much time right now...) Thanks. UPDATE I went with a MacBook Air. The price/weight/power was just right. Everything else was either too pricy (i5) or too heavy, or underpowered (SU7300 1.3GHz). Its a pity, because I didn't really want to leave Ubuntu. I'll still run it on my media center and spare (heavy) laptop.

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• Workflow 4.5 is Awesome, cant wait for 5.0!

  - by JoshReuben

  About 2 years ago I wrote a blog post describing what I would like to see in Workflow vnext: http://geekswithblogs.net/JoshReuben/archive/2010/08/25/workflow-4.0---not-there-yet.aspx At the time WF 4.0 was a little rough around the edges – the State Machine was on codeplex and people were simulating state machines with Flowcharts. Last year I built a near- realtime machine management system using WF 4.0.1 – its managing the internal operations of this device: http://landanano.com/products/commercial   Well WF 4.5 has come a long way – many of my gripes have been addressed: C# expressions - no more VB 'AndAlso' clauses state machine awesomeness - can query current state many designer improvements - Document Outline is so much more succinct than Designer! Separate WCF Service Contract interfaces and ability to generate activities from contract operations ability to rehydrate to updated flow definitions via DynamicUpdateMap and WorkflowIdentity you can read about the new features here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh305677(VS.110).aspx   2013 could be the year of Workflow evangelism for .NET, as it comes together as the DSL language. Eg on Azure it could be used to graphically orchestrate between WebRoles, WorkerRoles and AppFabric Queues and the ServiceBus – that would be grand.   Here’s a list of things I’d like to see in Workflow 5.0: Stronger Parallelism support for true multithreaded workflows . A Workflow executes on a single thread – wouldn’t it be great if we had the ability to model TPL DataFlow? Parallel is not really parallel, just allows AsyncCodeActivity.     support for recursion an ExpressionTree activity with an editor design surface a math activity pack return of application level protocol (3.51 WF services) – automatically expose a state machine as a WCF service with bookmark Receive activities generated from OperationContract automatically placed in state transition triggers. A new HTML5 ActivityDesigner control – support with different CSS3  skinnable hooks,  remote connectivity (had to roll my own) A data flow view – crucial to understanding the big picture Ability to refactor a Sequence to custom activity in a separate .xaml file – like Expression Blend does for UserControl state machine global error handling - if all states goto an error state, you quickly get visual spagetti. Now you could nest a state machine, but what if you want an application level protocol whereby each state exposes certain WCF ops. DSL RAD editing - Make the Document Outline into a DSL editor for adding activities  – For WF to really succeed as a higher level of abstraction, It needs to be more productive than raw coding - drag & drop on the designer is currently too slow compared to just typing code. Extensible Wizard API - for pluggable WF editor experience other execution models beyond Sequence, Flowchart & StateMachine: SSIS, Behavior Trees,  Wolfram Model tool – surprise us! improvements to Designer debugging API - SourceLocation is tied to XAML file line number and char position, and ModelService access seems convoluted - why not leverage WPF LogicalTreeHelper / VisualTreeHelper ? Workflow Team , keep on rocking!

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• Wrapping REST based Web Service

  - by PaulPerry

  I am designing a system that will be running online under Microsoft Windows Azure. One component is a REST based web service which will really be a wrapper (using proxy pattern) which calls the REST web services of a business partner, which has to do with BLOB storage (note: we are not using azure storage). The majority of the functionality will be taking a request, calling our partner web service, receiving the request and then passing that back to the client. There are a number of reasons for doing this, but one of the big ones is that we are going to support three clients: our desktop application (win and mac), mobile apps (iOS), and a web front end. Having a single API which we then send to our partner protects us if that partner ever changes. I want our service to support both JSON and XML for the data transfer format, JSON for web and probably XML for the desktop and mobile (we already have an XML parser in those products). Our partner also supports both of these formats. I was planning on using ASP.NET MVC 4 with the Web API. As I design this, the thing that concerns me is the static type checking of C#. What if the partner adds or removes elements from the data? We can probably defensively code for that, but I still feel some concern. Also, we have to do a fair amount of tedious coding, to setup our API and then to turn around and call our partner’s API. There probably is not much choice on it though. But, in the back of my mind I wonder if maybe a more dynamic language would be a better choice. I want to reach out and see if anybody has had to do this before, what technology solutions they have used to (I am not attached to this one, these days Azure can host other technologies), and if anybody who has done something like this can point out any issues that came up. Thanks! Researching the issue seems to only find solutions which focus on connecting a SOAP web service over a proxy server, and not what I am referring to here. Note: Cross posted (by suggestion) from http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11906802/wrapping-rest-based-web-service Thank you!

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• Speaker Notes...

  - by wulfers

  At a .Net User Group meeting this week, I experienced two poorly prepared speakers floundering through presentations….  As a Lead Technologist at the company I work for, I have experience training technical staff and also giving presentations at code camps.  Here are a few guidelines for aspiring speakers you might find helpful…   1.       Do not stand in front of your audience and read your slides.  This is  offensive to your audience and not what they came for...  Your slides are there to reinforce the information you are presenting and to give the audience a little clarification on some terms you may use and as a visual aid for some complicated issues. 2.       Have someone review your presentation (slides, notes, …) who speaks the language you will be presenting in fluently.  Also record at least ten minutes of your presentation and have that same person review that.  One of the speakers this week used the word “Basically” fifty times in less than thirty minutes…  I started to flinch every time he used the term. 3.       Be Prepared  -  before the presentation begins.  Don’t make any last minute changes to your presentation or demo code the night before.  Don’t patch your laptop or demo servers the night before.  If possible create a virtual image that you only use for presentations and use that (refreshed before every presentation). 4.       Know the level of expertise of your audience.  Speaking above or below their abilities will make or break your presentation. 5.       Deliver what you promise. The presentation this week was supposed to be on BDD (Behavior Driven Develpment).  The presenter completely ran off track and 90% of the discussion was how his team mistakenly used TDD (Test Driven Development), and was unhappy with the results.  Based on his loss of focus we only heard a rushed 10 minute presentation on DBB which was a disservice to the audience. 6.       Practice your presentation with your own small team before you try this on a room full of people you don’t know.  A side benefit of doing this with your own team is that you can get candid feedback from your team and also get kudos for training your own team.  I find I can also turn my presentations into technical white papers and get a third benefit from the work I’ve put into a presentation. 7.       Sharpen your own saw.  Pick a topic that is fairly current.  Something you would like to learn about and would benefit your current career path. 8.       Have fun doing it.

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• Is it okay to have people with multiple roles in a Scrum team?

  - by Wayne M

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

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• Fixing a NoClassDefFoundError

  - by Chris Okyen

  I have some code: package ftc; import java.util.Scanner; public class Fer_To_Cel { public static void main(String[] argv) { // Scanner object to get the temp in degrees Farenheit Scanner keyboard = new Scanner(System.in); boolean isInt = true; // temporarily put as true in case the user enters a valid int the first time int degreesF = 0; // initialy set to 0 do { try { // Input the temperature text. System.out.print("\nPlease enter a temperature (integer number, no fractional part) in degrees Farenheit: "); degreesF = Integer.parseInt(keyboard.next()); // Get user input and Assign the far. temperature variable, which is casted from String to int. } // Let the user know in a user friendly notice that the value entered wasnt an int ( give int value range ) , and then give error log catch(java.lang.Exception e) { System.out.println("Sorry but you entered a non-int value ( needs to be between ( including ) -2,147,483,648 and 2,147,483,647 ).. \n"); e.printStackTrace(); isInt = false; } } while(!isInt); System.out.println(""); // print a new line. final int degreesC = (5*(degreesF-32)/9); // convert the degrees from F to C and store the resulting expression in degreesC // Print out a newline, then print what X degrees F is in Celcius. System.out.println("\n" + degreesF + " degrees Farenheit is " + degreesC + " degrees Celcius"); } } And The following error: C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_06\bin>java Fer_To_Cel Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: Fer_To_Cel (wrong name: ftc/Fer_To_Cel) at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method) at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:791) at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:14 at java.net.URLClassLoader.defineClass(URLClassLoader.java:449) at java.net.URLClassLoader.access$100(URLClassLoader.java:71) at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:361) at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:355) at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method) at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:354) at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:423) at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:308) at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:356) at sun.launcher.LauncherHelper.checkAndLoadMain(LauncherHelper.java:480) The code compiled without compile errors, but presented errors during execution. Which leads me to two questions. I know Errors can be termed Compiler, Runtime and Logic Errors, but the NoClassDefFoundError inherits java.lang.LinkageError. Does that make it a Linker error, being niether of the three types of errors I listed, If I am right this is the answer. For someone else who obtains the singular .java file and compiles it, would this be the only way to solve this problem? Or can I (should I ) do/have done something to fix this problem? Basically, based on a basis of programming, is this a fault of me as the writer? Could this be done once on, my half and be distributed and not needed be done again?

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• How do I maintain a really poorly written code base?

  - by onlineapplab.com

  Recently I got hired to work on existing web application because of NDA I'm not at liberty to disclose any details but this application is working online in sort of a beta testing stage before official launch. We have a few hundred users right now but this number is supposed to significantly increase after official launch. The application is written in PHP (but it is irrelevant to my question) and is running on a dual xeon processor standalone server with severe performance problems. I have seen a lot of bad PHP code but this really sets new standards, especially knowing how much time and money was invested in developing it. it is as badly coded as possible there is PHP, HTML, SQL mixed together and code is repeated whenever it is necessary (especially SQL queries). there are not any functions used, not mentioning any OOP there are four versions of the app (desktop, iPhone, Android + other mobile) each version has pretty much the same functionality but was created by copying the whole code base, so now there are some differences between each version and it is really hard to maintain the database is really badly designed, which is causing severe performance problems also for fixing some errors in PHP code there is a lot of database triggers used which are updating data on SELECT and on INSERT so any testing is a nightmare Basically, any sin of a bad programming you can imagine is there for example it is not only possible to use SQL injections in literally every place but you can log into app if you use a login which doesn't exist and an empty password. The team which created this app is not working on it any more and there is an outsourced team which suggested that there are some problems but was never willing to deal with the elephant in the room partially because they've got a very comfortable contract and partially due to lack of skills (just my opinion). My job was supposed to be fixing some performance problems and extending existing functionality but first thing I was asked to do was a review of the existing code base. I've made my review and it was quite a shock for the management but my conclusions were after some time finally confirmed by other programmers. Management made it clear that it is not possible to start rewriting this app from scratch (which in my opinion should be done). We have to maintain its operable state and at the same time fix performance errors and extend the functionality. My question is, as I don't want just to patch the existing code, how to transform this into properly written app while keeping the existing code working at the same time? My plan is: Unify four existing versions into common code base (fixing only most obvious errors). Redesign db and use triggers to populate it with data (so data will be maintained in two formats at the same time) All new functionality will be written as separate project. Step by step transfer existing functionality into the new project After some time everything will be in the new project Some explanation about #2, right now it is practically impossible to make any updates in existing db any change requires reviewing whole code and making changes in many places. Is such plan feasible at all? Another solution is to walk away and leave the headache to someone else.

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• Maximizing the Value of Software

  - by David Dorf

  A few years ago we decided to increase our investments in documenting retail processes and architectures.  There were several goals but the main two were to help retailers maximize the value they derive from our software and help system integrators implement our software faster.  The sale is only part of our success metric -- its actually more important that the customer realize the benefits of the software.  That's when we actually celebrate. This week many of our customers are gathered in Chicago to discuss their successes during our annual Crosstalk conference.  That provides the perfect forum to announce the release of the Oracle Retail Reference Library.  The RRL is available for free to Oracle Retail customers and partners.  It contains 1000s of hours of work and represents years of experience in the retail industry.  The Retail Reference Library is composed of three offerings: Retail Reference Model We've been sharing the RRM for several years now, with lots of accolades.  The RRM is a set of business process diagrams at varying levels of granularity. This release marks the debut of Visio documents, which should make it easier for retailers to adopt and edit the diagrams.  The processes represent an approximation of the Oracle Retail software, but at higher levels they are pretty generic and therefore usable with other software as well.  Using these processes, the business and IT are better able to communicate the expectations of the software.  They can be used to guide customization when necessary, and help identify areas for optimization in the organization. Retail Reference Architecture When embarking on a software implementation project, it can be daunting to start from a blank sheet of paper.  So we offer the RRA, a comprehensive set of documents that describe the retail enterprise in terms of logical architecture, physical deployments, and systems integration.  These documents and diagrams describe how all the systems typically found in a retailer enterprise work together.  They serve as a way to jump-start implementations using best practices we've captured over the years. Retail Semantic Glossary Have you ever seen two people argue over something because they're using misaligned terminology?  Its a huge waste and happens all the time.  The Retail Semantic Glossary is a simple application that allows retailers to define terms and metrics in a centralized database.  This initial version comes with limited content with the goal of adding more over subsequent releases.  This is the single source for defining key performance indicators, metrics, algorithms, and terms so that the retail organization speaks in a consistent language. These three offerings are downloaded from MyOracleSupport separately and linked together using the start page above.  Everything is navigated using a Web browser.  See the Oracle Retail Documentation blog for more details.

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• Once installed geos library (C++, and C), and then trying to install rgeos package (R), it reports geos-config missing!

  - by user1873888

  Knowing that the package rgeos, from the R language, requieres a prior installation of geos libraries, I installed, both, libgeos and libgeos-c1 (3.2.2), using the synaptic installer in my Ubuntu 12.04 (32 bit) machine. Then I tried to install rgeos directly from the R console, and it issued a message in the sense that geos-config was not found. The output is as follows: > install.packages("rgeos") Installing package(s) into ‘/home/checo/R/i486-pc-linux-gnu-library/2.15’ (as ‘lib’ is unspecified) also installing the dependency ‘sp’ probando la URL 'http://cran.rstudio.com/src/contrib/sp_1.0-9.tar.gz' Content type 'application/x-gzip' length 882102 bytes (861 Kb) URL abierta ================================================== downloaded 861 Kb probando la URL 'http://cran.rstudio.com/src/contrib/rgeos_0.2-19.tar.gz' Content type 'application/x-gzip' length 221471 bytes (216 Kb) URL abierta ================================================== downloaded 216 Kb * installing *source* package ‘sp’ ... ** package ‘sp’ successfully unpacked and MD5 sums checked ** libs gcc -std=gnu99 -I/usr/share/R/include -DNDEBUG -fpic -O3 -pipe -g -c R centroid.c -o Rcentroid.o gcc -std=gnu99 -I/usr/share/R/include -DNDEBUG -fpic -O3 -pipe -g -c gcdist.c -o gcdist.o gcc -std=gnu99 -I/usr/share/R/include -DNDEBUG -fpic -O3 -pipe -g -c init.c -o init.o gcc -std=gnu99 -I/usr/share/R/include -DNDEBUG -fpic -O3 -pipe -g -c pip.c -o pip.o gcc -std=gnu99 -I/usr/share/R/include -DNDEBUG -fpic -O3 -pipe -g -c pip2.c -o pip2.o gcc -std=gnu99 -I/usr/share/R/include -DNDEBUG -fpic -O3 -pipe -g -c sp_xports.c -o sp_xports.o gcc -std=gnu99 -I/usr/share/R/include -DNDEBUG -fpic -O3 -pipe -g -c surfaceArea.c -o surfaceArea.o gcc -std=gnu99 -I/usr/share/R/include -DNDEBUG -fpic -O3 -pipe -g -c zerodist.c -o zerodist.o gcc -std=gnu99 -shared -o sp.so Rcentroid.o gcdist.o init.o pip.o pip2.o sp_xports.o surfaceArea.o zerodist.o -L/usr/lib/R/lib -lR installing to /home/checo/R/i486-pc-linux-gnu-library/2.15/sp/libs ** R ** data ** demo ** inst ** preparing package for lazy loading ** help *** installing help indices ** building package indices ** installing vignettes ‘intro_sp.Rnw’ ‘over.Rnw’ ** testing if installed package can be loaded * DONE (sp) * installing *source* package ‘rgeos’ ... ** package ‘rgeos’ successfully unpacked and MD5 sums checked configure: CC: gcc -std=gnu99 configure: CXX: g++ configure: rgeos: 0.2-17 checking for /usr/bin/svnversion... no configure: svn revision: 394 checking geos-config usability... ./configure: line 1385: geos-config: command not found no configure: error: geos-config not usable ERROR: configuration failed for package ‘rgeos’ * removing ‘/home/checo/R/i486-pc-linux-gnu-library/2.15/rgeos’ Warning in install.packages : installation of package ‘rgeos’ had non-zero exit status Forgive my ignorance, but I don't know where this file, "geos-config", comes from: should it be generated by the gcc compilations above, or should it be previously installed when the libgeos libraries were intalled? I learnt, from another machine, that "geos-config" is an executable and that it should be installed in /usr/bin. Do you have any idea on what's wrong with my procedure? Thanks, -Sergio.

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• The cost of Programmer Team Clustering

  - by MarkPearl

  I recently was involved in a conversation about the productivity of programmers and the seemingly wide range in abilities that different programmers have in this industry. Some of the comments made were reiterated a few days later when I came across a chapter in Code Complete (v2) where it says "In programming specifically, many studies have shown order-of-magnitude differences in the quality of the programs written, the sizes of the programs written, and the productivity of programmers". In line with this is another comment presented by Code Complete when discussing teams - "Good programmers tend to cluster, as do bad programmers". This is something I can personally relate to. I have come across some really good and bad programmers and 99% of the time it turns out the team they work in is the same - really good or really bad. When I have found a mismatch, it hasn't stayed that way for long - the person has moved on, or the team has ejected the individual. Keeping this in mind I would like to comment on the risks an organization faces when forcing teams to remain together regardless of the mix. When you have the situation where someone is not willing to be part of the team but still wants to get a pay check at the end of each month, it presents some interesting challenges and hard decisions to make. First of all, when this occurs you need to give them an opportunity to change - for someone to change, they need to know what the problem is and what is expected. It is unreasonable to expect someone to change but have not indicated what they need to change and the consequences of not changing. If after a reasonable time of an individual being aware of the problem and not making an effort to improve you need to do two things... Follow through with the consequences of not changing. Consider the impact that this behaviour will have on the rest of the team. What is the cost of not following through with the consequences? If there is no follow through, it is often an indication to the individual that they can continue their behaviour. Why should they change if you don't care enough to keep your end of the agreement? In many ways I think it is very similar to the "Broken Windows" principles – if you allow the windows to break and don’t fix them, more will get broken. What is the cost of keeping them on? When keeping a disruptive influence in a team you risk loosing the good in the team. As Code Complete says, good and bad programmers tend to cluster - they have a tendency to keep this balance - if you are not going to help keep the balance they will. The cost of not removing a disruptive influence is that the good in the team will eventually help you maintain the clustering themselves by leaving.

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• How Do I Do Alpha Transparency Properly In XNA 4.0?

  - by Soshimo

  Okay, I've read several articles, tutorials, and questions regarding this. Most point to the same technique which doesn't solve my problem. I need the ability to create semi-transparent sprites (texture2D's really) and have them overlay another sprite. I can achieve that somewhat with the code samples I've found but I'm not satisfied with the results and I know there is a way to do this. In mobile programming (BREW) we did it old school and actually checked each pixel for transparency before rendering. In this case it seems to render the sprite below it blended with the alpha above it. This may be an artifact of how I'm rendering the texture but, as I said before, all examples point to this one technique. Before I go any further I'll go ahead and paste my example code. public void Draw(SpriteBatch batch, Camera camera, float alpha) { int tileMapWidth = Width; int tileMapHeight = Height; batch.Begin(SpriteSortMode.Texture, BlendState.AlphaBlend, SamplerState.PointWrap, DepthStencilState.Default, RasterizerState.CullNone, null, camera.TransformMatrix); for (int x = 0; x < tileMapWidth; x++) { for (int y = 0; y < tileMapHeight; y++) { int tileIndex = _map[y, x]; if (tileIndex != -1) { Texture2D texture = _tileTextures[tileIndex]; batch.Draw( texture, new Rectangle( (x * Engine.TileWidth), (y * Engine.TileHeight), Engine.TileWidth, Engine.TileHeight), new Color(new Vector4(1f, 1f, 1f, alpha ))); } } } batch.End(); } As you can see, in this code I'm using the overloaded SpriteBatch.Begin method which takes, among other things, a blend state. I'm almost positive that's my problem. I don't want to BLEND the sprites, I want them to be transparent when alpha is 0. In this example I can set alpha to 0 but it still renders both tiles, with the lower z ordered sprite showing through, discolored because of the blending. This is not a desired effect, I want the higher z-ordered sprite to fade out and not effect the color beneath it in such a manner. I might be way off here as I'm fairly new to XNA development so feel free to steer me in the correct direction in the event I'm going down the wrong rabbit hole. TIA

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• Best Frameworks/libraries/engines for 2D multiplayer C# Webbased RPG

  - by Thirlan

  Title is a mouthful but important because I'm looking to meet a specific criteria and it's complex enough that I need a lot of help in finding what I'm looking for. I really want people's suggestions because I trust it a lot more than anything else, so I just need to clearly define what it is I want heh : P Game is a 2D RPG. Think of Secret of Mana. Game is online multiplayer, but not MMO sized. Game must be webbased! I'm looking to the future and want to hit as many platforms as possible. I'm leaning to Webgl because of this, but still looking around. Since the users are seeing the game through the webbrowser the front-end should be mainly responsible for drawing, taking input and some basic checking such as preliminary collision detection. This is important because it means the game engine is NOT on the client's machine. The server should be responsible for the game engine and all the calculations. This means the server is doing all the work and the client is mostly a dumb terminal. Server language is c# I'm looking for fast project execution so I want to use as many pre-existing tools as possible. This would make sense because I'm making a game here, not an engine. I'm not creating some new revolutionary graphics or pushing the physics engines to the next level. Preference for commercially supported tools. For game mechanics reasons and for reasons 4 and 5, don't think I can use existing 2D rpg engines. I've seen them out there and I fear that if I try and use them they will have too many restrictions, but will be happy to hear out suggestions. So all this means I need a game engine on the server, or maybe just a physics engine, and then I need another engine/library to draw everything that the server is sending to the client on the webbrowser. Maybe this is how 50% of games work on the web and there are plenty of frameworks that support this! I wouldn't actually don't know : ( but my gut is telling me that most webgames are single player and 90% of the game is running on the client. So... any suggestions?

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• Collision in PyGame for spinning rectangular object.touching circles

  - by OverAchiever

  I'm creating a variation of Pong. One of the differences is that I use a rectangular structure as the object which is being bounced around, and I use circles as paddles. So far, all the collision handling I've worked with was using simple math (I wasn't using the collision "feature" in PyGame). The game is contained within a 2-dimensional continuous space. The idea is that the rectangular structure will spin at different speed depending on how far from the center you touch it with the circle. Also, any extremity of the rectangular structure should be able to touch any extremity of the circle. So I need to keep track of where it has been touched on both the circle and the rectangle to figure out the direction it will be bounced to. I intend to have basically 8 possible directions (Up, down, left, right and the half points between each one of those). I can work out the calculation of how the objected will be dislocated once I get the direction it will be dislocated to based on where it has been touch. I also need to keep track of where it has been touched to decide if the rectangular structure will spin clockwise or counter-clockwise after it collided. Before I started coding, I read the resources available at the PyGame website on the collision class they have (And its respective functions). I tried to work out the logic of what I was trying to achieve based on those resources and how the game will function. The only thing I could figure out that I could do was to make each one of these objects as a group of rectangular objects, and depending on which rectangle was touched the other would behave accordingly and give the illusion it is a single object. However, not only I don't know if this will work, but I also don't know if it is gonna look convincing based on how PyGame redraws the objects. Is there a way I can use PyGame to handle these collision detections by still having a single object? Can I figure out the point of collision on both objects using functions within PyGame precisely enough to achieve what I'm looking for? P.s: I hope the question was specific and clear enough. I apologize if there were any grammar mistakes, English is not my native language.

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• Methodology to understanding JQuery plugin & API's developed by third parties

  - by Taoist

  I have a question about third party created JQuery plug ins and API's and the methodology for understanding them. Recently I downloaded the JQuery Masonry/Infinite scroll plug in and I couldn't figure out how to configure it based on the instructions. So I downloaded a fully developed demo, then manually deleted everything that wouldn't break the functionality. The code that was left allowed me to understand the plug in much greater detail than the documentation. I'm now having a similar issue with a plug in called JQuery knob. http://anthonyterrien.com/knob/ If you look at the JQuery Knob readme file it says this is working code: $(function() { $('.dial') .trigger( 'configure', { "min":10, "max":40, "fgColor":"#FF0000", "skin":"tron", "cursor":true } ); }); But as far as I can tell it isn't at all. The read me also says the Plug in uses Canvas. I am wondering if I am suppose to wrap this code in a canvas context or if this functionality is already part of the plug in. I know this kind of "question" might not fit in here but I'm a bit confused on the assumptions around reading these kinds of documentation and thought I would post the query regardless. Curious to see if this is due to my "newbi" programming experience or if this is something seasoned coders also fight with. Thank you. Edit In response to Tyanna's reply. I modified the code and it still doesn't work. I posted it below. I made sure that I checked the Google Console to insure the basics were taken care of, such as not getting a read-error on the library. <!DOCTYPE html> <meta charset="UTF-8"> <title>knob</title> <link rel="stylesheet" href="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.7.2/themes/hot-sneaks/jquery-ui.css" type="text/css" /> <script type="text/javascript" src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.2/jquery.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8.21/jquery-ui.min.js"></script> <script src="js/jquery.knob.js"></script> <div id="button1">test </div> <script> $(function() { $("#button1").click(function () { $('.dial').trigger( 'configure', { "min":10, "max":40, "fgColor":"#FF0000", "skin":"tron", "cursor":true } ); }); }); </script>

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