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  • Role based access control in Oracle VM using Enterprise Manager 12c

    - by Ronen Kofman
    Enterprise Managers let’s you control any element in the environment and define which users can do what on each element. We will show here an example on how to set up RBAC (Role Base Access Control) for Oracle VM using Enterprise Manager, this will be a very simplified explanation  to help you get going. For more comprehensive explanations please refer to the Enterprise Manager User Guide. OK, first some basic Enterprise Manager terminology: Target – any element in the environment is a target – server, pool, zone, VM etc. Administrators – these are the Enterprise Manager users who can login to the platform. Roles – roles are privilege profiles which could be applied to Administrators. The first step will be to discover the virtual environment and bring it in to Enterprise Manager, this process is simple and can be done in two ways: Work on your Oracle VM manager, set it up until you feel comfortable and then register it in Enterprise Manager Use Enterprise Manager and build it all from there. In both cases we will be able to see the same picture from Oracle VM and from Enterprise Manager, any change made in one will be reflected in the other. Oracle VM Manager: Enterprise Manager: Once you have your virtual environment set up in Enterprise Manager it is time to start associating VMs with users (or Administrators as they are called in Enterprise Manager). Enterprise Manager allows us to connect to multiple different identity services and import users from them but the simplest way to add Administrators is just go to setup->security->Administrators and create new Administrator. The creation wizard will walk you through several stages and allow you to assign role(s) to your newly created Administrator, using roles can really shorten the process if done multiple times. When you get to “Target Privileges” stage, scroll down to the bottom to the “Target Privileges” section. In this section you can add targets (virtual machine in our case) and define the type of privileges you would like to assign to the Administrator which you are creating. In this example I chose one of the VMs and granted full privileges to the newly created Administrator. Administrator creation wizard "Target Privileges": Now when you login as the newly created administrator, you will only see the VM that was assign to you and will be able to have full control over it. That’s it, simple and straight forward, Enterprise Manager offers many more things which I skipped here but the point is that if you need role based access control Enterprise Manager can give it to you in a very easy way. Oh and one more thing, virtualization management in Enterprise Manager has no license cost, sweet.

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  • Wordpress Installation (on IIS and SQL Server)

    - by Davide Mauri
    To proceed with the installation of Wordpress on SQL Server and IIS, first of all, you need to do the following steps Create a database on SQL Server that will be used by Wordpress Create login that can access to the just created database and put the user into ddladmin, db_datareader, db_datawriter roles Download and unpack Wordpress 3.3.2 (latest version as of 27 May 2012) zip file into a directory of your choice Download the wp-db-abstraction 1.1.4 (latest version as of 27 May 2012) plugin from wordpress.org website Now that the basic action has been done, you can start to setup and configure your Wordpress installation. Unpack and follow the instructions in the README.TXT file to install the Database Abstraction Layer. Mainly you have to: Upload wp-db-abstraction.php and the wp-db-abstraction directory to wp-content/mu-plugins.  This should be parallel to your regular plugins directory.  If the mu-plugins directory does not exist, you must create it. Put the db.php file from inside the wp-db-abstraction.php directory to wp-content/db.php Now you can create an application pool in IIS like the following one Create a website, using the above Application Pool, that points to the folder where you unpacked Wordpress files. Be sure to give the “Write” permission to the IIS account, as pointed out in this (old, but still quite valid) installation manual: http://wordpress.visitmix.com/development/installing-wordpress-on-sql-server#iis Now you’re ready to go. Point your browser to the configured website and the Wordpress installation screen will be there for you. When you’re requested to enter information to connect to MySQL database, simply skip that page, leaving the default values. If you have installed the Database Abstraction Layer, another database installation screen will appear after the one used by MySQL, and here you can enter the configuration information needed to connect to SQL Server. After having finished the installation steps, you should be able to access and navigate your wordpress site.  A final touch, and it’s done: just add the needed rewrite rules http://wordpress.visitmix.com/development/installing-wordpress-on-sql-server#urlrewrite and that’s it! Well. Not really. Unfortunately the current (as of 27 May 2012) version of the Database Abstraction Layer (1.1.4) has some bugs. Luckily they can be quickly fixed: Backslash Fix http://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-wp-db-abstraction-fix-problems-with-backslash-usage Select Top 0 Fix Make the change to the file “.\wp-content\mu-plugins\wp-db-abstraction\translations\sqlsrv\translations.php” suggested by “debettap”   http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3485384&group_id=315685&atid=1328061 And now you have a 100% working Wordpress installation on SQL Server! Since I also wanted to take advantage of SQL Server Full Text Search, I’ve created a very simple wordpress plugin to setup full-text search and to use it as website search engine: http://wpfts.codeplex.com/ Enjoy!

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  • Best Platform/Engine for turn based Client/Server Android game

    - by Paradine
    I'm currently designing a turn based game for tablets. Initially for Android with porting to iOS later considered in design. I'm having trouble narrowing down the available technologies to even know where to spend my research time. I am hoping that if I explain what I am trying to achieve someone may be able to suggest a platform and/or engine. I've looked into some of the open source Engines ( http://www.cuteandroid.com/ten-open-source-android-2d-or-3d-game-engine-for-android-developers ) and some appear to handle much of what I might require - although with a higher focus on graphics than i need. Mages looks interesting although development appears to have ceased. If I could somehow leverage GoogleApps that would be excellent. Here is what I am trying to achieve: PvP turn based strategy game over internet - minimal animation and bandwidth required Players match up online using MetaGame system MatchID created on Resolution Server and Game starts Clients have 30 second countdown to select MoveString Clients sends small secure timestamped and MatchIDed MoveString to Resolution server Resolution server looks up Move String for each player, Resolves and Updates Players status in MatchID on Server Resolution server updates Client Views Repeat until victory conditions met - MatchID Closed, Rewards earned in MetaGame There will also need to be a full social and account system and metagame backend - but this could be running on separate system(s) Tablet in Offline mode would be catalog browsing and perhaps single player AI - bum I'm focusing on the Resolution Server at this point I'm not even certain if I would be looking at an Android App or a WebApp at this stage! I want a custom GUI so I guess an app - but maybe as I have little animation a WebApp might also work. Probably some combination of both. There will be very small overhead in data between client server - essentially a small text string every 30 seconds sent to the Resolution server which looks up the Effect and applies it to the Opponents string and determines some results to apply to the match. The client view is updated minimally with the results (only 5 in game Integers tracked) - perhaps triggering small animations/popups on the client to show the end result. e.g Explosion. If you have suggestions for a good technology or platform to best achieving the Resolution Server I'd love to hear. Also if you have experience with open source Engines - and could narrow down which (if any ) might be most suitable that would be a big help. Thanks in advance

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  • What constitutes a "substantial, good-faith effort to remove the links"

    - by Luke McCallum
    We engaged the services of a 3rd party SEO consultant to assist us in managing our Meta data and to write regular blogs on our site http://cyberdesignworks.com.au Without our authorisation, the SEO also ran a link building campaign which has seen us Penguin slapped and we no longer appear in Google for a number of our core keywords. Since notification by Google that we have "unnatural links" back in March we have undertaken a significant campaign to rid ourselves of these dodgy backlinks by a number of methods. I have just received feedback on my 4th or 5th resubmission which is still advising that we need to make a "substantial, good-faith effort to remove the links" before Google will reconsider us for inclusion. After the effort that I have gone through to get links removed, I am now at a loss as to what else I can do to demonstrate "substantial, good-faith effort to remove the links". Below is a summary of the actions that we have taken to date. According to http://removem.com we had about 5584 back-linking domains. Of those we have successfully contacted and had removed links from 344 domains We ignored links from 625 domains as they were either legitimate press releases, natural backlinks or client websites containing an attribution link in the footer that points back to us. Due to our efforts, or the sites simply becoming defunct, removem.com reports that links from 3262 domains have been removed. We have contacted but are yet to receive feedback from 1666 domains so we can assume that the backlinks remain. We have configured an automatic 301 redirect for each of the links from these 1666 domains to point to http://redirects.sanscode.com/ which we are calling our Bad Link Catcher (a stroke of genius I thought). i.e http://www.mysimplewebdesign.com/create-a-perfect-webpage-with-four-important-tips-from-sydney-web-development-service-companies.php As we are a web design agency, we have a large number of client websites which contain an attribution link in their footer which points back to us. We have gone through the vast majority of these and updated these links to replace anchor text with an image and rel="nofollow" link. i.e <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.cyberdesignworks.com.au/"><img src="https://sessions.sanscode.com/site/assets/media/badges/Badge_CDW_SANSCODE.png"></a> See http://www.milkatwork.com.au/ An export from http://removem.com detailing the number of times we have contacted each link and whether it is still found or not was also supplied with each resubmission. The total back links reported in Google Web Master Tools has dropped from over 100K to 87K and I expect it to drop significantly lower once Google re-crawls each back-linking page. Based on all of the above, I am not sure what else I can do to to demonstrate a "substantial, good-faith effort to remove the links". I would sincerely appreciate any feedback or suggestions that you may have as I am out of ideas.

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  • Leading an offshore team

    - by Chuck Conway
    I'm in a position where I am leading two teams of 4. Both teams are located in India. I am on the west coast of the U.S. I'm finding leading remote teams challenging: First, their command of the English language is weak. Second, I'm having difficultly understanding them through their accents. Third is timing, we are 12 hours apart. We use Skype to communicate. I have a month to get the project done. We've burned through a week just setting up the environments. At this point I'm considering working their hours, 11p PDT to 7a PDT, to get them up to speed, so that I can get the project off the ground. A 12 hour lag time is too much. I'm looking for steps I can take to be successful at leading an offshore team. Update The offshore team's primary task is coding, of course, most coding tasks do involve some design work. The offshore team's are composed of one lead, 2 mid level (4 to 5 years) developers and a junior (~2 years) developer. The project is classic waterfall. We've handed the offshore team a business and a technical design document. We are trying to manage the offshore in an agile way. We have daily conference calls with them and I'm requiring the teams to send me a daily scrum in the form of an email answering the following questions: What did I do today? What am I going to do tomorrow? What do I need from Chuck so I can do my job tomorrow? There is some ambiguity in the tasks. The intent was to give them enough direction for them to develop the task with out writing the code for them. I don't have a travel budget. I am using Fogbugz to track the tasks. Each task has been entered into Fogbugz and given a priority. Each team member has access to FogBugz and can choose what task they wish to complete. Related question: What can we do to improve the way outsourcing/offshoring works? Update 2 I've decided that I can not talk to the team once a day. I must work with them. Starting tonight I've started working the same hours they are. This makes me available to them when they have questions. It also allows me to gain their trust and respect. Stackoverflow question Leading an offshore team

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  • K2 4.5 Quick Thoughts

    I just finished attending a webcast on K2 4.5 and I thought Id share a few quick thoughts. Power User Story Improved Given it is just a presentation and I havent actually played with it, the story seemed improved and more believable that real world power users would be able to define workflows in SharePoint.  Power users who would be comfortable with Excel functions may be able to do some more worthwhile workflows since there is new support for inline functions and conditions.  The new SilverLight K2 designer seems pretty user friendly, though the dialog windows can really stack up which may get confusing.  I thought the neatest part was that the workflow can be defined just by starting with a SharePoint Lists settings which may be okay for some organizations and simpler workflows that dont need to define the workflow and push it through lots of testing in different environments.  The standalone K2 Studio is back.  In K2 2003 it was required because Visual Studio integration didnt exist.  Its back now for use by power users who need functionality up to the point of code.  Not sure if this Administration/Installation Installation is supposed to be simplified, with unattended install and other details I didnt catch.  Install and configuration has always seemed daunting to me so anything to improve that is good.  Related to that there is a new tool that is meant to help diagnose issues in your installation.  That may include figuring out missing permissions or services that arent running.  Also, now all K2 SharePoint features deployed as solutions. Dynamic SQL Service Broker Create a smart object to go against a table that you created, NOT the SmartBox.  This seems promising and something that maybe should have been there all along. Reference Event Allows you to call functionally that youve referenced, in the sample showing it was calling a web service that was referenced.  It seemed odd because it was really like writing code using dialogs (call constructor, set timeout, call web service method).  Seemed a little odd to me. Help We were reminded that help.k2.com site is newish site that is supposed to be the MSDN of K2 for partners and customers. VS 2010 Support Still no hard date on this, but what we were told is approximately 90 days after VS 2010 is officially released.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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  • Unable to add users to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 after database restore

    - by Wes Weeks
    Working with a client in our Multi-tenant CRM environment who was doing a database migration into CRM and as part of the process, a backup of their Organization_MSCRM database was taken just prior to starting the migration in case it needed to be restored and run a second time. In this case it did, so I restored the database and let the client know he should be good to go.  A few hours later I received a call that they were unable to add some new users, they would appear as available when using the add multiple user wizard, but anyone added would not be added to CRM.  It was also disucussed that these users had been added to CRM initally AFTER the database backup had been taken. I turned on tracing and tried to add the users through both the single user form and multiple user interface and was unable to do so.  The error message in the logs wasn't much help: Unexpected error adding user [email protected]: Microsoft.Crm.CrmException: INVALID_WRPC_TOKEN: Validate WRPC Token: WRPCTokenState=Invalid, TOKEN_EXPIRY=4320, IGNORE_TOKEN=False Searching on Google or bing didn't offer any assitance.  Apparently not a very common problem, or no one has been able to resolve. I did some searching in the MSCRM_CONFIG database and found that their are several user tables there and after getting my head around the structure found that there were enties here for users that were not part of the restored DB.  It seems that new users are added to both the Orgnaization_MSCRM and MSCRM_CONFIG and after the restore these were out of sync. I needed to remove the extra entries in order to address.  Restoring the MSCRM_CONFIG database was not an option as other clients could have been adding users at this point and to restore would risk breaking their instances of CRM.  Long story short, I was finally able to generate a script to remove the bad entries and when I tried to add users again, I was succesful.  In case someone else out there finds themselves in a similar situation, here is the script I used to delete the bad entries. DECLARE @UsersToDelete TABLE (   UserId uniqueidentifier )   Insert Into @UsersToDelete(UserId) Select UserId from [MSCRM_CONFIG].[dbo].[SystemUserOrganizations] Where CrmuserId Not in (select systemuserid from Organization_MSCRM.dbo.SystemUserBase) And OrganizationId = '00000000-643F-E011-0000-0050568572A1' --Id From the Organization table for this instance   Delete From [MSCRM_CONFIG].[dbo].[SystemUserAuthentication]   Where UserId in (Select UserId From @UsersToDelete)   Delete From [MSCRM_CONFIG].[dbo].[SystemUserOrganizations] Where UserId in (Select UserId From @UsersToDelete)   Delete From [MSCRM_CONFIG].[dbo].[SystemUser] Where Id in (Select UserId From @UsersToDelete)

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  • Thinktecture.IdentityServer RC

    - by Your DisplayName here!
    I just uploaded the RC of IdentityServer to Codeplex. This release is feature complete and if I don’t get any bug reports this is also pretty much the final V1. Changes from B1 The configuration data access is now based on EF 4.1 code first. This makes it much easier to use different data stores. For RTM I will also provide a SQL script for SQL Server so you can move the configuration to a separate machine (e.g. for load balancing scenarios). I included the ASP.NET Universal Providers in the download. This adds official support for SQL Azure, SQL Server and SQL Compact for the membership, roles and profile features. Unfortunately the Universal Provider use a different schema than the original ASP.NET providers (that sucks btw!) – so I made them optional. If you want to use them go to web.config and uncomment the new provider. The relying party registration entries now have added fields to add extra data that you want to couple with the RP. One use case could be to give the UI a hint how the login experience should look like per RP. This allows to have a different look and feel for different relying parties. I also included a small helper API that you can use to retrieve the RP record based on the incoming WS-Federation query string. WS-Federation single sign out is now conforming to the spec. Certificate based endpoint identities for SSL endpoints are optional now. Added a initial configuration “wizard”. This sets up the signing certificate, issuer URI and site title on the first run. Installation This is still a “developer” release – that means it ships with source code that you have to build it etc. But from that point it should be a little more straightforward as it used to be: Make sure SSL is configured correctly for IIS Map the WebSite directory to a vdir in IIS Run the web site. This should bring up the initial configuration Make sure the worker process account has access to the signing certificate private key Make sure all your users are in the “IdentityServerUsers” role in your role store. Administrators need the “IdentityServerAdministrators” role That should be it. A proper documentation will be hopefully available soon (any volunteers?). Please provide feedback! thanks!

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  • Torchlight Black Screen and doesn't show up

    - by Lelouch Reyiz
    When I open it in full screen I get a black screen that covers whole screen,in windowed mode middle of screen.Here is a video: https://copy.com/fvrGw7QIJ8Z0 Terminal Output: alperen@alperen-Inspiron-N5010 /usr/local/games/Torchlight $ ./Torchlight.bin.x86_64 Creating resource group General Creating resource group Internal Creating resource group Autodetect SceneManagerFactory for type 'DefaultSceneManager' registered. Registering ResourceManager for type Material Registering ResourceManager for type Mesh Registering ResourceManager for type Skeleton MovableObjectFactory for type 'ParticleSystem' registered. OverlayElementFactory for type Panel registered. OverlayElementFactory for type BorderPanel registered. OverlayElementFactory for type TextArea registered. Registering ResourceManager for type Font ArchiveFactory for archive type FileSystem registered. ArchiveFactory for archive type Zip registered. FreeImage version: 3.13.1 This program uses FreeImage, a free, open source image library supporting all common bitmap formats. See http://freeimage.sourceforge.net for details Supported formats: bmp,ico,jpg,jif,jpeg,jpe,jng,koa,iff,lbm,mng,pbm,pbm,pcd,pcx,pgm,pgm,png,ppm,ppm,ras,tga,targa,tif,tiff,wap,wbmp,wbm,psd,cut,xbm,xpm,gif,hdr,g3,sgi,exr,j2k,j2c,jp2,pfm,pct,pict,pic,bay,bmq,cr2,crw,cs1,dc2,dcr,dng,erf,fff,hdr,k25,kdc,mdc,mos,mrw,nef,orf,pef,pxn,raf,raw,rdc,sr2,srf,arw,3fr,cine,ia,kc2,mef,nrw,qtk,rw2,sti,drf,dsc,ptx,cap,iiq,rwz DDS codec registering Registering ResourceManager for type HighLevelGpuProgram Registering ResourceManager for type Compositor MovableObjectFactory for type 'Entity' registered. MovableObjectFactory for type 'Light' registered. MovableObjectFactory for type 'BillboardSet' registered. MovableObjectFactory for type 'ManualObject' registered. MovableObjectFactory for type 'BillboardChain' registered. MovableObjectFactory for type 'RibbonTrail' registered. Loading library lib64/OGRE/RenderSystem_GL Installing plugin: GL RenderSystem OpenGL Rendering Subsystem created. Plugin successfully installed Loading library lib64/OGRE/Plugin_ParticleFX Installing plugin: ParticleFX Particle Emitter Type 'Point' registered Particle Emitter Type 'Box' registered Particle Emitter Type 'Ellipsoid' registered Particle Emitter Type 'Cylinder' registered Particle Emitter Type 'Ring' registered Particle Emitter Type 'HollowEllipsoid' registered Particle Affector Type 'LinearForce' registered Particle Affector Type 'ColourFader' registered Particle Affector Type 'ColourFader2' registered Particle Affector Type 'ColourImage' registered Particle Affector Type 'ColourInterpolator' registered Particle Affector Type 'Scaler' registered Particle Affector Type 'Rotator' registered Particle Affector Type 'DirectionRandomiser' registered Particle Affector Type 'DeflectorPlane' registered Plugin successfully installed Loading library lib64/OGRE/Plugin_OctreeSceneManager Installing plugin: Octree & Terrain Scene Manager Plugin successfully installed *-*-* OGRE Initialising *-*-* Version 1.6.5 (Shoggoth) terminate called after throwing an instance of 'std::out_of_range' what(): basic_string::substr Error: signal: 6 ./Torchlight.bin.x86_64(_ZN10LinuxUtils13crash_handlerEi+0x25)[0x17eb6f5] /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6(+0x37000)[0x7fc647877000] /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6(gsignal+0x39)[0x7fc647876f89] /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6(abort+0x148)[0x7fc64787a398] /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6(_ZN9__gnu_cxx27__verbose_terminate_handlerEv+0x155)[0x7fc6481826b5] /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6(+0x5e836)[0x7fc648180836] /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6(+0x5e863)[0x7fc648180863] /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6(+0x5eaa2)[0x7fc648180aa2] /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6(_ZSt20__throw_out_of_rangePKc+0x67)[0x7fc6481d25d7] /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6(+0xbe3d3)[0x7fc6481e03d3] ./Torchlight.bin.x86_64(_ZN11CFileSystem21buildMassiveDataGroupEv+0x453)[0x1617805] ./Torchlight.bin.x86_64(_ZN11CFileSystemC1Eb+0x14be)[0x16145ae] ./Torchlight.bin.x86_64(_ZN22CMasterResourceManagerC1EP9CSettings+0x41a)[0xfe1d0a] ./Torchlight.bin.x86_64(_ZN5CGame5setupEb+0x79a)[0x73ceaa] ./Torchlight.bin.x86_64(_ZN5CGame5beginEPv+0x28d)[0x73b839] ./Torchlight.bin.x86_64(main+0x649)[0x146dbe4] /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xf5)[0x7fc647861ec5] ./Torchlight.bin.x86_64[0x739ca9]

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  • Compute directional light frustum from view furstum points and light direction

    - by Fabian
    I'm working on a friends engine project and my task is to construct a new frustum from the light direction that overlaps the view frustum and possible shadow casters. The project already has a function that creates a frustum for this but its way to big and includes way to many casters (shadows) which can't be seen in the view frustum. Now the only parameter of this function are the normalized light direction vector and a view class which lets me extract the 8 view frustum points in world space. I don't have any additional infos about the scene. I have read some of the related Questions here but non seem to fit very well to my problem as they often just point to cascaded shadow maps. Sadly i can't use DX or openGl functions directly because this engine has a dedicated math library. From what i've read so far the steps are: Transform view frustum points into light space and find min/max x and y values (or sometimes minima and maxima of all three axis) and create a AABB using the min/max vectors. But what comes after this step? How do i transform this new AABB back to world space? What i've done so far: CVector3 Points[8], MinLight = CVector3(FLT_MAX), MaxLight = CVector3(FLT_MAX); for(int i = 0; i<8;++i){ Points[i] = Points[i] * WorldToShadowMapMatrix; MinLight = Math::Min(Points[i],MinLight); MaxLight = Math::Max(Points[i],MaxLight); } AABox box(MinLight,MaxLight); I don't think this is the right way to do it. The near plain probably has to extend into the direction of the light source to include potentional shadow casters. I've read the Microsoft article about cascaded shadow maps http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ee416307%28v=vs.85%29.aspx which also includes some sample code. But they seem to use the scenes AABB to determine the near and far plane which I can't since i cant access this information from the funtion I'm working in. Could you guys please link some example code which shows the calculation of such frustum? Thanks in advance! Additional questio: is there a way to construct a WorldToFrustum matrix that represents the above transformation?

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  • How can I convince cowboy programmers to use source control?

    - by P.Brian.Mackey
    UPDATE I work on a small team of devs, 4 guys. They have all used source control. Most of them can't stand source control and instead choose not to use it. I strongly believe source control is a necessary part of professional development. Several issues make it very difficult to convince them to use source control: The team is not used to using TFS. I've had 2 training sessions, but was only allotted 1 hour which is insufficient. Team members directly modify code on the server. This keeps code out of sync. Requiring comparison just to be sure you are working with the latest code. And complex merge problems arise Time estimates offered by developers exclude time required to fix any of these problems. So, if I say nono it will take 10x longer...I have to constantly explain these issues and risk myself because now management may perceive me as "slow". The physical files on the server differ in unknown ways over ~100 files. Merging requires knowledge of the project at hand and, therefore, developer cooperation which I am not able to obtain. Other projects are falling out of sync. Developers continue to have a distrust of source control and therefore compound the issue by not using source control. Developers argue that using source control is wasteful because merging is error prone and difficult. This is a difficult point to argue, because when source control is being so badly mis-used and source control continually bypassed, it is error prone indeed. Therefore, the evidence "speaks for itself" in their view. Developers argue that directly modifying server code, bypassing TFS saves time. This is also difficult to argue. Because the merge required to synchronize the code to start with is time consuming. Multiply this by the 10+ projects we manage. Permanent files are often stored in the same directory as the web project. So publishing (full publish) erases these files that are not in source control. This also drives distrust for source control. Because "publishing breaks the project". Fixing this (moving stored files out of the solution subfolders) takes a great deal of time and debugging as these locations are not set in web.config and often exist across multiple code points. So, the culture persists itself. Bad practice begets more bad practice. Bad solutions drive new hacks to "fix" much deeper, much more time consuming problems. Servers, hard drive space are extremely difficult to come by. Yet, user expectations are rising. What can be done in this situation?

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  • Justification for learning/implementing newer Microsoft technologies

    - by Darren
    I work at a large healthcare organization as a mid-level software developer. I have over 10 years experience in the IT industry using Microsoft technologies (ASP.NET & SQL Server). When I go to conferences, code camps, .net user group meetings, I hear of all kinds of new tools and technologies: MVC, LINQ, Entity Framework, WCF Web Services, etc. I guess you could say I'm in my comfort zone using the same old stuff from asp.net 2.0. I use typed datasets for my data access layer. I use web forms and feature rich server controls with master pages. I know how to use plain old SQL and create queries in my typed datasets to get at data my applications need. Throughout my career, I'm always sensitive to not become obsolete with my skill set. What I currently use works fine and my development time is fast. But I'm concerned that if I were to be laid off, I would be asked in interviews how many MVC apps I've written. Or how I am with LINQ or WCF web services. I know that it doesn't matter how many conferences, books, or videos I watch on some new technology...I have to implement/use it or it simply won't sink in. Also, managers who interview don't care how much someone reads up on something, only real use and experience with a technology. I have a new project to write. I've gone to my manager and have asked for additional time for the project for learning/implementing technology I may not be familiar with. Our organization encourages its employees to "learn and grow" and to continue are education. But I always get resistance when I ask for more time to ramp up on something new to implement. My manager is asking for concrete business reasons for implementing these new technologies. I don't have business reasons. My reasons are because I don't want to become obsolete. I could say it would make the project more maintainable in the future by other developers since at some point people could stop using these older technologies, but that' about all I can think of. Does Linq/Entity Framework/MCV apps perform better? So much so that the customers (users in departments I'm creating this app for) need? I doubt it. I'm interested in you guy's thoughts on this. Do many of you have similar plights with trying to use newer upcoming technologies? I doubt I'm on the bleeding edge of technology, either. Are there "business reasons" that you would bring to light for using these technologies? Thanks in advance! Sorry for the long wall of text.

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  • What to do if I am working on a language that I don't like

    - by Sayem Ahmed
    Hi there, I really don't know if this is the right place to ask this question, but if it isn't, then I guess someone will notify. Anyway, I am working in a software development farm which is currently using PowerBuilder to develop a mid-size ERP solution. The work environment and company management are so great that it may be the best in the whole Bangladesh. Only problem is the technology that are currently being used, which is this PowerBuilder. Now I am a guy who tends to prefer modern development technologies, like DI containers, ORM, TDD, JQuery etc. PowerBuilder is a great tool too, but I couldn' like the application techniques used to build PB applications. These techniques are so inheritance-dependent that many a times these create a great deal of sufferings. I remember two days ago I had to change some processing logic in a core user object and as a result I had to test and re-test all the forms that the application have(apparently, there are almost 20 forms there, each of them with 3-4 kinds of functionalities). Also, learning PB is tough, because online material on this thing is very, very low. I can't afford to read all the documentation that PB provide because I have hard deadlines on the work that I have to do. Another thing with PB is that applications tend to rely on business logic that are implemented on databases which causes debugging to be a nightmare. As a result, I don't feel motivated enough to work in this IDE/System/Framework (or whatever) anymore. My productivity has greatly decreased, and I am not delivering quality code. I think I have the following options available to me - Remain in the current job, keep delivering worse code and let my productivity decrease day by day, taking salaries and bonuses but not delivering quality codes/doing my job the way I should, Search for a new job. At this point number 2 seems a good option, but there are also some issues. As I mentioned before, our management may be the best in the country. Our company owner is himself a software developer with 24 years of experience in software development. He is currently our Team Leader and System Analyst. He is by far the greatest manager and boss I have ever seen. He understands developer's mentality very well(as he IS himself a developer). He is also a great, kind and generous guy. Our company is only a start-up company with 10 developers. Among them, only 3-4 people knows about the business logic behind the ERP, and I am one of them. If I switch my current job, it may hamper the development of this product which I really don't want. I couldn't decide what to do in this situation, so I turned to the community for advice.

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  • Clone an Azure VM using Powershell

    - by jamiet
    In a few months time I will, in association with Technitrain, be running a training course entitled Introduction to SQL Server Data Tools. I am currently working on putting together some hands-on lab material for the course delegates and have decided that in order to save time in asking people to install software during the course I am simply going to prepare a virtual machine (VM) containing all the software and lab material for each delegate to use. Given that I am an MSDN subscriber it makes sense to use Windows Azure to host those VMs given that it will be close to, if not completely, free to do so. What I don’t want to do however is separately build a VM for each delegate, I would much rather build one VM and clone it for each delegate. I’ve spent a bit of time figuring out how to do this using Powershell and in this blog post I am sharing a script that will: Prompt for some information (Azure credentials, Azure subscription name, VM name, username & password, etc…) Create a VM on Azure using that information Prompt you to sysprep the VM and image it (this part can’t be done with Powershell so has to be done manually, a link to instructions is provided in the script output) Create three new VMs based on the image Remove those three VMs Simply download the script and execute it within Powershell, assuming you have an Azure account it should take about 20minutes to execute (spinning up VMs and shutting the down isn’t instantaneous). If you experience any issues please do let me know. There are additional notes below. Hope this is useful! @Jamiet  Notes: Obviously there isn’t a lot of point in creating some new VMs and then instantly deleting them. However, this demo script does provide everything you need should you want to do any of these operations in isolation. The names of the three VMs that get created will be suffixed with 001, 002, 003 but you can edit the script to call them whatever you like. The script doesn’t totally clean up after itself. If you specify a service name & storage account name that don’t already exist then it will create them however it won’t remove them when everything is complete. The created image file will also not be deleted. Removing these items can be done by visiting http://manage.windowsazure.com. When creating the image, ensure you use the correct name (the script output tells you what name to use): Here are some screenshots taken from running the script: When the third and final VM gets removed you are asked to confirm via this dialog: Select ‘Yes’

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  • Amazon.com Cutting Off Colorado Affiliates

    - by Joe Mayo
    I received an email from Amazon.com today, essentially cutting off my affiliate status because I'm in Colorado. Colorado recently passed legislation that requires retailers to either collect sales tax for on-line transactions or engage in an onerous process that makes you wish you had collected sales tax.  After I Tweeted this, Mike Jones tweeted a link to the legislation.  Here's an excerpt from Amazon.com's email: "Dear Colorado-based Amazon Associate: We are writing from the Amazon Associates Program to inform you that the Colorado government recently enacted a law to impose sales tax regulations on online retailers. The regulations are burdensome and no other state has similar rules. The new regulations do not require online retailers to collect sales tax. Instead, they are clearly intended to increase the compliance burden to a point where online retailers will be induced to "voluntarily" collect Colorado sales tax -- a course we won't take. We and many others strongly opposed this legislation, known as HB 10-1193, but it was enacted anyway. Regrettably, as a result of the new law, we have decided to stop advertising through Associates based in Colorado. We plan to continue to sell to Colorado residents, however, and will advertise through other channels, including through Associates based in other states. There is a right way for Colorado to pursue its revenue goals, but this new law is a wrong way. As we repeatedly communicated to Colorado legislators, including those who sponsored and supported the new law, we are not opposed to collecting sales tax within a constitutionally-permissible system applied even-handedly. The US Supreme Court has defined what would be constitutional, and if Colorado would repeal the current law or follow the constitutional approach to collection, we would welcome the opportunity to reinstate Colorado-based Associates. You may express your views of Colorado's new law to members of the General Assembly and to Governor Ritter, who signed the bill. Your Associates account has been closed as of March 8, 2010, and we will no longer pay advertising fees for customers you refer to Amazon.com after that date. Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned prior to March 8, 2010, will be processed and paid in accordance with our regular payment schedule. Based on your account closure date of March 8, any final payments will be paid by May 31, 2010. We have enjoyed working with you and other Colorado-based participants in the Amazon Associates Program, and wish you all the best in your future.   Best Regards,   The Amazon Associates Team"

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  • Windows Azure Recipe: Big Data

    - by Clint Edmonson
    As the name implies, what we’re talking about here is the explosion of electronic data that comes from huge volumes of transactions, devices, and sensors being captured by businesses today. This data often comes in unstructured formats and/or too fast for us to effectively process in real time. Collectively, we call these the 4 big data V’s: Volume, Velocity, Variety, and Variability. These qualities make this type of data best managed by NoSQL systems like Hadoop, rather than by conventional Relational Database Management System (RDBMS). We know that there are patterns hidden inside this data that might provide competitive insight into market trends.  The key is knowing when and how to leverage these “No SQL” tools combined with traditional business such as SQL-based relational databases and warehouses and other business intelligence tools. Drivers Petabyte scale data collection and storage Business intelligence and insight Solution The sketch below shows one of many big data solutions using Hadoop’s unique highly scalable storage and parallel processing capabilities combined with Microsoft Office’s Business Intelligence Components to access the data in the cluster. Ingredients Hadoop – this big data industry heavyweight provides both large scale data storage infrastructure and a highly parallelized map-reduce processing engine to crunch through the data efficiently. Here are the key pieces of the environment: Pig - a platform for analyzing large data sets that consists of a high-level language for expressing data analysis programs, coupled with infrastructure for evaluating these programs. Mahout - a machine learning library with algorithms for clustering, classification and batch based collaborative filtering that are implemented on top of Apache Hadoop using the map/reduce paradigm. Hive - data warehouse software built on top of Apache Hadoop that facilitates querying and managing large datasets residing in distributed storage. Directly accessible to Microsoft Office and other consumers via add-ins and the Hive ODBC data driver. Pegasus - a Peta-scale graph mining system that runs in parallel, distributed manner on top of Hadoop and that provides algorithms for important graph mining tasks such as Degree, PageRank, Random Walk with Restart (RWR), Radius, and Connected Components. Sqoop - a tool designed for efficiently transferring bulk data between Apache Hadoop and structured data stores such as relational databases. Flume - a distributed, reliable, and available service for efficiently collecting, aggregating, and moving large log data amounts to HDFS. Database – directly accessible to Hadoop via the Sqoop based Microsoft SQL Server Connector for Apache Hadoop, data can be efficiently transferred to traditional relational data stores for replication, reporting, or other needs. Reporting – provides easily consumable reporting when combined with a database being fed from the Hadoop environment. Training These links point to online Windows Azure training labs where you can learn more about the individual ingredients described above. Hadoop Learning Resources (20+ tutorials and labs) Huge collection of resources for learning about all aspects of Apache Hadoop-based development on Windows Azure and the Hadoop and Windows Azure Ecosystems SQL Azure (7 labs) Microsoft SQL Azure delivers on the Microsoft Data Platform vision of extending the SQL Server capabilities to the cloud as web-based services, enabling you to store structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data. See my Windows Azure Resource Guide for more guidance on how to get started, including links web portals, training kits, samples, and blogs related to Windows Azure.

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  • How to include an apache library with my opensource code?

    - by OscarRyz
    I have this opensource code with MIT license that uses an Apache 2.0 licensed library. I want to include this in my project, so it can be built right away. In the point 4 of that license explains how to redistribute it: excerpt: 4 . Redistribution. You may reproduce and distribute copies of the Work or Derivative Works thereof in any medium, with or without modifications, and in Source or Object form, provided that You meet the following conditions: You must give any other recipients of the Work or Derivative Works a copy of this License; and You must cause any modified files to carry prominent notices stating that You changed the files; and You must retain, in the Source form of any Derivative Works that You distribute, all copyright, patent, trademark, and attribution notices from the Source form of the Work, excluding those notices that do not pertain to any part of the Derivative Works; and If the Work includes a "NOTICE" text file as part of its distribution, then any Derivative Works that You distribute must include a readable copy of the attribution notices contained within such NOTICE file, excluding those notices that do not pertain to any part of the Derivative Works, in at least one of the following places: within a NOTICE text file distributed as part of the Derivative Works; within the Source form or documentation, if provided along with the Derivative Works; or, within a display generated by the Derivative Works, if and wherever such third-party notices normally appear. The contents of the NOTICE file are for informational purposes only and do not modify the License. You may add Your own attribution notices within Derivative Works that You distribute, alongside or as an addendum to the NOTICE text from the Work, provided that such additional attribution notices cannot be construed as modifying the License. You may add Your own copyright statement to Your modifications and may provide additional or different license terms and conditions for use, reproduction, or distribution of Your modifications, or for any such Derivative Works as a whole, provided Your use, reproduction, and distribution of the Work otherwise complies with the conditions stated in this License. I'm not creating a derivative work ( I plan to provide it as it is ). I don't have a NOTICE file, just my my own LICENSE.txt file. Question: Where should I put something along the lines: "This project uses Xyz library distributed under Apache2.0 ..."? What's recommented? Should I provide the apache license file too? Or would be enough if I just say "Find the license online here...http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html" I hope someone who has done this in the past may shed some light on the matter.

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  • How should I pitch moving to an agile/iterative development cycle with mandated 3-week deployments?

    - by Wayne M
    I'm part of a small team of four, and I'm the unofficial team lead (I'm lead in all but title, basically). We've largely been a "cowboy" environment, with no architecture or structure and everyone doing their own thing. Previously, our production deployments would be every few months without being on a set schedule, as things were added/removed to the task list of each developer. Recently, our CIO (semi-technical but not really a programmer) decided we will do deployments every three weeks; because of this I instantly thought that adopting an iterative development process (not necessarily full-blown Agile/XP, which would be a huge thing to convince everyone else to do) would go a long way towards helping manage expectations properly so there isn't this far-fetched idea that any new feature will be done in three weeks. IMO the biggest hurdle is that we don't have ANY kind of development approach in place right now (among other things like no CI or automated tests whatsoever). We don't even use Waterfall, we use "Tell Developer X to do a task, expect him to do everything and get it done". Are there any pointers that would help me start to ease us towards an iterative approach and A) Get the other developers on board with it and B) Get management to understand how iterative works? So far my idea involves trying to set up a CI server and get our build process automated (it takes about 10-20 minutes right now to simply build the application to put it on our development server), since pushing tests and/or TDD will be met with a LOT of resistance at this point, and constantly force us to break larger projects into smaller chunks that could be done iteratively in a three-week cycle; my only concern is that, unless I'm misunderstanding, an agile/iterative process may or may not release the software (depending on the project scope you might have "working" software after three weeks, but there isn't enough of it that works to let users make use of it), while I think the expectation here from management is that there will always be something "ready to go" in three weeks, and that disconnect could cause problems. On that note, is there any literature or references that explains the agile/iterative approach from a business standpoint? Everything I've seen only focuses on the developers, how to do it, but nothing seems to describe it from the perspective of actually getting the buy-in from the businesspeople.

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  • Get to Know a Candidate (2 of 25): Merlin Miller&ndash;American Third Position Party

    - by Brian Lanham
    DISCLAIMER: This is not a post about “Romney” or “Obama”. This is not a post for whom I am voting. Information sourced for Wikipedia. Meet Merlin Miller of American Third Position Party In addition to being American Third Position Party nominee, Miller is an independent film maker.  He is a graduate of West Point and has commanded two units in the United States Army.  After military service he worked as an industrial engineering manager for Michelin Tire.  He learned about film making by earning an MFA from the University of Southern California. Mr. Miller is on the ballot in: CO, NJ, and TN. In the 2000’s, Miller began taking an increasingly paleoconservative political stance.  He claimed that Hollywood “ surreptitiously seeks to destroy our European-American heritage and our Christian-based traditional values, and replace them with values that debase these traditional values and elevate minorities as paragons of virtue and wisdom....Today’s motion pictures, in concert with other forms of mass media entertainment, are the greatest enemies to the well-being of our progeny and the future of our country.” Miller states that he "doesn't like" interracial marriage; however, he does not support outlawing interracial marriage, either.  Miller has denied being anti-Semitic, instead claiming that he merely opposes "favoritism" granted to Jews in the film industry.  He also opposes illegal immigration and what he refers to as "wide open borders" in the United States. The American Third Position Party (A3P) is a third positionist American political party which promotes white supremacy.  It was officially launched in January 2010 (although in November 2009 it filed papers to get on a ballot in California) partially to channel the right-wing populist resentment engendered by the financial crisis of 2007–2010 and the policies of the Obama administration and defines its principal mission as representing the political interests of white Americans. The party takes a strong stand against immigration and globalization, and strongly supports an anti-interventionist foreign policy. Although the party does not support labor unions, they do strongly support the labor rights of the American working class on a platform of placing American workers first over illegal immigrant workers and banning of overseas corporate relocation of American industry and technology Third Position or Third Alternative refers to a revolutionary nationalist political position that emphasizes its opposition to both communism and capitalism. Advocates of Third Position politics typically present themselves as "beyond left and right", instead claiming to syncretize radical ideas from both ends of the political spectrum Learn more about Merlin Miller and American Third Position Party on Wikipedia.

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  • Unrated Easy iOS 6.1.4/6.1.3 Unlock/Jailbreak iPhone 5/4S/4/3GS Untehtered System

    - by user171772
    Popular jailbreak tool Unlock-Jailbreak.net – compiled by the iPhone Team – has just been updated with full support for Unlock/Jailbreak iPhone 5/4S/4/3GS iOS 6.1.4 and 6.1.3/6.0.1 Untethered. You may have caught our tutorial, which detailed how one could jailbreak their device tethered using Redsn0w, although since it was a pre-iOS 6.1.1 release, users needed to "point" the tool to the older firmware. Team Unlock-Jailbreak was established few years ago, combines some of the jailbreak and unlock community’s most talented developers all known for producing reliable jailbreaks in the past. This team was assembled in order to develop a reliable untethered jailbreak and unlock iphone 5,4S,4 iOS 6.1 for post-A5 devices, including the iPhone 5, the iPad mini and the latest-generation iPad. This has now been achieved with the just-released userland jailbreak tool, known as Unlock-Jailbreak.net. To Jailbreak and Unlock your iPhone 5/4/4S/3GS iOS 6.1.4 and 6.1.3 visit the official website http://www.Unlock-Jailbreak.net http://www.Unlock-Jailbreak.net was formed in mid 2008 and have successfully jailbroken over 250,000 iPhones worldwide. This is unparalleled by any other service in the industry. They have achieved this by combining a very simple solution with a fantastic customer service department that is available 24/7 through many forms of contact, including telephone. Unlock-Jailbreak from Unlock-Jailbreak.nethas been downloaded by over 250,000 customers located in over 145 countries. To further ensure customers of its products usability, Unlock-Jailbreak offers a 100% full money back guarantee on all orders. Customers dissatisfied with the company’s product will be given a full refund, no questions asked. One good advantage of the software is that the jailbreaking and unlocking process is coampletely reversible and there will be no evidence that the iPhone has been jailbroken and unlocked . iOS 6.1/6.1.4 and 6.1.3 comes with many new features and updates for multitasking and storage. By unlocking and jailbreaking the iPhone,Unlock/Jailbreak iPhone 5/4S/4/3GS iOS 6.1/6.1.4 and 6.1.3/6.0.1 Untethered unleash unlimited possibilities to improve this already fantastic experience and the iPhone FULL potential. Before going through any jailbreak process with Unlock-Jailbreak it is always good housekeeping to perform a full backup of all information on the device. It is unlikely that anything will go wrong during the process but when undertaking any process that modifies the internals of a file system it is always prudent to err on the side of caution.

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  • RealTek RTL8188CE WiFi adapter doesn't connect reliably

    - by ken.ganong
    I recently bought a new system76 laptop which came pre-installed with Ubuntu 11.10. I've been having trouble with my wireless connectivity. It seems that my connection with my wireless network keeps going in and out. It is not my network--I have seen the same problem on multiple WiFi networks and at different distances and reported link qualities. OS version: Ubuntu 11.10 oneiric kernel version: 3.0.0-14-generic lspci: lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 net 04:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8188CE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter [10ec:8176] (rev 01) Subsystem: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device [10ec:9196] Kernel driver in use: rtl8192ce -- 05:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: JMicron Technology Corp. JMC250 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller [197b:0250] (rev 05) Subsystem: CLEVO/KAPOK Computer Device [1558:2500] Kernel driver in use: jme iwconfig: iwconfig lo no wireless extensions. eth0 no wireless extensions. wlan0 IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID:"peppermintpatty" Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 98:FC:11:6C:E0:22 Bit Rate=72.2 Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm Retry long limit:7 RTS thr=2347 B Fragment thr:off Power Management:off Link Quality=49/70 Signal level=-61 dBm Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:1103 Missed beacon:0 lshw: sudo lshw -class network *-network description: Wireless interface product: RTL8188CE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:04:00.0 logical name: wlan0 version: 01 serial: 00:1c:7b:a1:95:04 width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rtl8192ce driverversion=3.0.0-14-generic firmware=N/A ip=192.168.1.106 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn resources: irq:18 ioport:e000(size=256) memory:f7d00000-f7d03fff *-network description: Ethernet interface product: JMC250 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller vendor: JMicron Technology Corp. physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:05:00.0 logical name: eth0 version: 05 serial: 00:90:f5:c0:42:b3 size: 10Mbit/s capacity: 1Gbit/s width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm pciexpress msix msi bus_master cap_list rom ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=jme driverversion=1.0.8 duplex=half latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=MII speed=10Mbit/s resources: irq:56 memory:f7c20000-f7c23fff ioport:d100(size=128) ioport:d000(size=256) memory:f7c10000-f7c1ffff memory:f7c00000-f7c0ffff Any help would be appreciated. The last time I've dealt with wireless issues, the most given solution was NDIS wrapper and I seem sorely out-of-date.

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  • ACORD LOMA 2010: Building Insurance Companies in the Clouds

    - by [email protected]
    Chuck Johnston, vice president of global strategy and alliances for Oracle Insurance, participated in a featured speaking session at ACORD LOMA 2010. He provides an update on his discussions with insurers at the show and after his presentation. Every year I always make a point of walking the show floor at the ACORD LOMA technology conference to visit with colleagues and competitors, and try to get a feel for which way the industry will move over the next 12 months. Insurers are looking for substance in cloud (computing), trying to mix business with pleasure (monetizing social networks), and expect differentiation through commodity (Software as a Service). The disconnect at this show is that most vendors are still struggling with creating a clear path from Facebook to customer intimacy, SaaS to core cost savings and clouds to ubiquitous presence. Vendors need to find new ways to help insurers find the real value in these potentially disruptive technologies by understanding the changes coming to the insurance business and how these new technologies impact the new insurance business. Oracle's approach to understanding the evolving insurance industry comes from a discussion with our customers in our Insurance CIO Council, where one of our customers suggested we buy an insurance company to really understand our customers. We have decided to do the next best thing and build our own model of an insurance company, Alamere Insurance, that uses the latest technologies to transform its own business. Alamere will never issue an actual policy, but it does give us a framework to consider the impacts of changes in the insurance landscape and how Oracle technology meets the challenge or needs to evolve to help our customers be successful. In preparing for my talk at the conference using Alamere as my organizing theme, I found myself reading actuarial memoranda on CSO table changes and articles on underwriting theory that really made me think about my customer's problems first and foremost, and then how Oracle technology can provide answers. As much as I prefer techno-thrillers and sci-fi novels to actuarial papers for plane reading, I got very excited about the idea of putting myself back in the customer shoes I haven't worn in a decade, and really looking at how Oracle can power the Adaptive Insurance Enterprise. Talking to customers and industry people after the session, the idea of Alamere seemed to excite people and I got a lot of suggestions as to what lines of business we should model and where we should focus first on technology uptake. One customer said to a colleague that Oracle's attempt to "share their pain" was unique among vendors. More about Alamere, and the Adaptive Insurance Enterprise next time. Chuck Johnston is vice president of global strategy and alliances for Oracle Insurance.

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  • To Serve Man?

    - by Dave Convery
    Since the announcement of Windows 8 and its 'Metro' interface, the .NET community has wondered if the skills they've spent so long developing might be swept aside,in favour of HTML5 and JavaScript. Mercifully, that only seems to be true of SilverLight (as Simon Cooper points out), but it did leave me thinking how easy it is to impose a technology upon people without directly serving their needs. Case in point: QR codes. Once, probably, benign in purpose, they seem to have become a marketer's tool for determining when someone has engaged with an advert in the real world, with the same certainty as is possible online. Nobody really wants to use QR codes - it's far too much hassle. But advertisers want that data - they want to know that someone actually read their billboard / poster / cereal box, and so this flawed technology is suddenly everywhere, providing little to no value to the people who are actually meant to use it. What about 3D cinema? Profits from the film industry have been steadily increasing throughout the period that digital piracy and mass sharing has been possible, yet the industry cinema chains have forced 3D films upon a broadly uninterested audience, as a way of providing more purpose to going to a cinema, rather than watching it at home. Despite advances in digital projection, 3D cinema is scarcely more immersive to us than were William Castle's hoary old tricks of skeletons on wires and buzzing chairs were to our grandparents. iTunes - originally just a piece of software that catalogued and ripped music for you, but which is now multi-purpose bloatware; a massive, system-hogging behemoth. If it was being built for the people that used it, it would have been split into three or more separate pieces of software long ago. But as bloatware, it serves Apple primarily rather than us, stuffed with Music, Video, Various stores and phone / iPad management all bolted into one. Why? It's because, that way, you're more likely to bump into something you want to buy. You can't even buy a new laptop without finding that a significant chunk of your hard drive has been sold to 'select partners' - advertisers, suppliers of virus-busting software, and endless bloatware-flogging pop-ups that make using a new laptop without reformatting the hard drive like stepping back in time. The product you want is not the one you paid for. This is without even looking at services like Facebook and Klout, who provide a notional service with the intention of slurping up as much data about you as possible (in Klout's case, whether you create an account with them or not). What technologies do you find annoying or intrusive, and who benefits from keeping them around?

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  • Why does Chrome video performance substantially degrade after waking from suspend in 10.10?

    - by Grant Heaslip
    Note: For some more details, some of which may not be true given what I've figured out, see this post. When I first boot my computer, video performance (both native H.264 HTML5 in YouTube and Vimeo, and in Flash) in Chrome is perfectly reasonable. CPU usage stays slow, everything works correctly, and the video is silky-smooth. But for whatever reason, if I suspend my computer then wake it up, video performance plummets. Full screen HTML5 video is choppy at best, and full-screen Flash video basically brings my computer to its knees (I'm talking less than a frame a second, and a 5 second lead time to leave full-screen after hitting Esc). Restarting Chrome doesn't fix this — I need to completely restart my machine before performance goes back to normal. Video performance in other applications, such as Movie Player, doesn't seem to be affected at all by the suspend cycle — it's only Chrome. I'm using a Lenovo X201, with an Intel GMA HD graphics chipset, and Intel compnents all around (I don't need any proprietary drivers). This didn't happen in 10.04, and I haven't anything that I think would have caused this to happen. It's possible that a Chrome release could have caused this, but it seems less likely than a regression between 10.04 and 10.10. Any ideas? EDIT: In response Georg's comment, logging in and out doesn't fix it. Restarting Compiz or switching to Metacity (at least by using "compiz/metacity --replace & disown" — am I doing it right?) doesn't help (actually, it seemed to help somewhat with Flash once, but I haven't been able to reproduce this). I'm not sure about GDM — when I use "sudo restart gdm" I get kicked back to the Linux shell (?), which I have no idea how to get out of. Also, I want to make very clear that this isn't just a case of Flash sucking (it does,but that's beside the point). I"m seeing the same general problem with HTML5 videos, and Flash is performing better on my Nexus One than it does on my Core i5 laptop. There's something screwy going on with Chrome and/or 10.10.

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  • How much freedom should a programmer have in choosing a language and framework?

    - by Spencer
    I started working at a company that is primarily a C# oriented. We have a few people who like Java and JRuby, but a majority of programmers here like C#. I was hired because I have a lot of experience building web applications and because I lean towards newer technologies like JRuby on Rails or nodejs. I have recently started on a project building a web application with a focus on getting a lot of stuff done in a short amount of time. The software lead has dictated that I use mvc4 instead of rails. That might be OK, except I don't know mvc4, I don't know C# and I am the only one responsible for creating the web application server and front-end UI. Wouldn't it make sense to use a framework that I already know extremely well (Rails) instead of using mvc4? The two reasons behind the decision was that the tech lead doesn't know Jruby/rails and there would be no way to reuse the code. Counter arguments: He won't be contributing to the code and is frankly, not needed on this project. So, it doesn't really matter if he knows JRuby/rails or not. We actually can reuse the code since we have a lot of java apps that JRuby can pull code from and vice-versa. In fact, he has dedicated some resources to convert a Java library to C#, instead of just running the Java library on the JRuby on Rails app. All because he doesn't like Java or JRuby I have built many web applications, but using something unfamiliar is causing some spin-up and I am unable to build an awesome application in as short of a time that I'm used to. This would be fine, learning new technologies is important in this field. The problem is, for this project, we need to get a lot done in a short period of time. At what point should a developer be allowed to choose his tools? Is this dependent on the company? Does my company suck or is this considered normal? Do greener pastures exist? Am I looking at this the wrong way? Bonus: Should I just keep my head down and move along at a snails pace, or defy orders and go with what I know in order to make this project more successful? Edit: I had actually created a fully function rails application (on my own time) and showed it to the team and it did not seem to matter. I am currently porting it to mvc4 (slowly).

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