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• Making it GREAT! Oracle Partners Building Apps Workshop with UX and ADF in UK

  - by ultan o'broin

  Yes, making is what it's all about. This time, Oracle Partners in the UK were making great looking usable apps with the Oracle Applications Development Framework (ADF) and user experience (UX) toolkit. And what an energy-packed and productive event at the Oracle UK, Thames Valley Park, location it was. Partners learned the fundamentals of enterprise applications UX, why it's important, all about visual design, how to wireframe designs, and then how to build their already-proven designs in ADF. There was a whole day on mobile apps, learning about mobile design principles, free mobile UX and ADF resources from Oracle, and then trying it out. The workshop wrapped up with the latest Release 7 simplified UIs, Mobilytics, and other innovations from Oracle, and a live demo of a very neat ADF Mobile Android app built by an Oracle contractor. And, what a fun two days both Grant Ronald of ADF and myself had in running the workshop with such a great audience, too! I particularly enjoyed the wireframing and visual design sessions interaction; and seeing some outstanding work done by partners. Of note from the UK workshop were innovative design features not seen before and made me all the happier that developers were bringing their own ideas from the consumer IT world of mobility, simplicity, and social to the world of work apps in a smart way within an enterprise methodology too.  Partner wireframe exercise. Applying mobile design principles and UX design patterns means you've already productively making great usable apps! Next, over to Oracle ADF Mobile with it! One simple example from the design of a mobile field service app was that participants immediately saw how the UX and device functionality of the super UK-based app Hailo app could influence their designs (the London cabbie influence maybe?), as well as how we all use maps, cameras, barcode scanners and microphones on our phones could be used in work. And, of course, ADF Mobile has the device integration solutions there too! I wonder will U.S. workshops in Silicon Valley see an Uber UX influence (LOL)! That we also had partners experienced with Oracle Forms who could now offer a roadmap from Forms to Simplified UI and Mobile using ADF, and do it through through the cloud, really made this particular workshop go "ZING!" for me. Many thanks to the Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) team for organizing this event with us, and to the representatives of the Oracle Partners that showed and participated so well. That's what I love out this outreach. It's a two-way, solid value-add for all. Interested? Why would partners and developers with ADF skills sign up for this workshop? Here's why: Learn to use the Oracle Applications User Experience design patterns as the usability building blocks for applications development in Oracle Application Development Framework. The workshop enables attendees to build modern and visually compelling desktop and mobile applications that look and behave like Oracle Cloud Applications, and that can co-exist with partner integrations, new, or existing applications deployments. Partners learn to offer customers and clients more than just coded functionality; instead they can provide a complete user experience with a roadmap for continued ROI from applications that also creating more business and attracts the kudos and respect from other makers of apps as they're wowed by the results. So, if you're a partner and interested in attending one of these workshops and benefitting from such learning, as well as having a platform to show off some of your own work, stay well tuned to your OPN channels, to this blog, to the VoX blog, and to the @usableapps Twitter account too. Can't wait? For developers and partners, some key mobile resources to explore now Oracle ADF Mobile UX Patterns and Components Wiki Oracle ADF Academy (Mobile) Oracle ADF Insider Essentials Oracle Applications Mobile User Experience Design Patterns and Guidance

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• Resolving bounding box collision detection

  - by ndg

  I'm working on a simple collision detection and resolution method for a 2d tile-based bounding box system. Collision appears to work correctly, but I'm having issues with resolving a collision after it has happened. Essentially what I'm attempting to do is very similar to this approach. The problem I'm experiencing is that because objects can be traveling with both horizontal and vertical velocity, my resolution code causes the object to jump incorrectly. I've drawn the following annotation to explain my issue. In this example, because my object has both horizontal and vertical velocity, my object (which is heading upwards and collides with the bottom of a tile) has it's position altered twice: To correctly adjust it's vertical position to be beneath the tile. To incorrectly adjust it's horizontal position to be to the left of the tile. Below is my collision/resolution code in full: function intersects(x1, y1, w1, h1, x2, y2, w2, h2) { w2 += x2; w1 += x1; if (x2 > w1 || x1 > w2) return false; h2 += y2; h1 += y1; if (y2 > h1 || y1 > h2) return false; return true; } for(var y = 0; y < this.game.level.tiles.length; y++) { for(var x = 0; x < this.game.level.tiles[y].length; x++) { var tile = this.game.level.getTile(x, y); if(tile) { if( this.velocity.x > 0 && intersects(this.position.x+dx+this.size.w, this.position.y+dy, 1, this.size.h, x*tileSize, y*tileSize, tileSize, tileSize) ) { this.position.x = ((x*tileSize)-this.size.w); hitSomething = true; break; } else if( this.velocity.x < 0 && intersects(this.position.x+dx, this.position.y+dy, 1, this.size.h, x*tileSize, y*tileSize, tileSize, tileSize) ) { this.position.x = ((x*tileSize)+tileSize); hitSomething = true; break; } if( this.velocity.y > 0 && intersects(this.position.x+dx, this.position.y+dy+this.size.h, this.size.w, 1, x*tileSize, y*tileSize, tileSize, tileSize) ) { this.position.y = ((y*tileSize)-this.size.h); hitSomething = true; break; } else if( this.velocity.y < 0 && intersects(this.position.x+dx, this.position.y+dy, this.size.w, 1, x*tileSize, y*tileSize, tileSize, tileSize) ) { this.position.y = ((y*tileSize)+tileSize); hitSomething = true; break; } } } } if(hitSomething) { this.velocity.x = this.velocity.y = 0; dx = dy = 0; this.setJumping(false); }

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• Inside Red Gate - Exercising Externally

  - by simonc

  Over the next few weeks, we'll be performing experiments on SmartAssembly to confirm or refute various hypotheses we have about how people use the product, what is stopping them from using it to its full extent, and what we can change to make it more useful and easier to use. Some of these experiments can be done within the team, some within Red Gate, and some need to be done on external users. External testing Some external testing can be done by standard usability tests and surveys, however, there are some hypotheses that can only be tested by building a version of SmartAssembly with some things in the UI or implementation changed. We'll then be able to look at how the experimental build is used compared to the 'mainline' build, which forms our baseline or control group, and use this data to confirm or refute the relevant hypotheses. However, there are several issues we need to consider before running experiments using separate builds: Ideally, the user wouldn't know they're running an experimental SmartAssembly. We don't want users to use the experimental build like it's an experimental build, we want them to use it like it's the real mainline build. Only then will we get valid, useful, and informative data concerning our hypotheses. There's no point running the experiments if we can't find out what happens after the download. To confirm or refute some of our hypotheses, we need to find out how the tool is used once it is installed. Fortunately, we've applied feature usage reporting to the SmartAssembly codebase itself to provide us with that information. Of course, this then makes the experimental data conditional on the user agreeing to send that data back to us in the first place. Unfortunately, even though this does limit the amount of useful data we'll be getting back, and possibly skew the data, there's not much we can do about this; we don't collect feature usage data without the user's consent. Looks like we'll simply have to live with this. What if the user tries to buy the experiment? This is something that isn't really covered by the Lean Startup book; how do you support users who give you money for an experiment? If the experiment is a new feature, and the user buys a license for SmartAssembly based on that feature, then what do we do if we later decide to pivot & scrap that feature? We've either got to spend time and money bringing that feature up to production quality and into the mainline anyway, or we've got disgruntled customers. Either way is bad. Again, there's not really any good solution to this. Similarly, what if we've removed some features for an experiment and a potential new user downloads the experimental build? (As I said above, there's no indication the build is an experimental build, as we want to see what users really do with it). The crucial feature they need is missing, causing a bad trial experience, a lost potential customer, and a lost chance to help the customer with their problem. Again, this is something not really covered by the Lean Startup book, and something that doesn't have a good solution. So, some tricky issues there, not all of them with nice easy answers. Turns out the practicalities of running Lean Startup experiments are more complicated than they first seem! Cross posted from Simple Talk.

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• ADO and Two Way Storage Tiering

  - by Andy-Oracle

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 We get asked the following question about Automatic Data Optimization (ADO) storage tiering quite a bit. Can you tier back to the original location if the data gets hot again? The answer is yes but not with standard Automatic Data Optimization policies, at least not reliably. That's not how ADO is meant to operate. ADO is meant to mirror a traditional view of Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) where data will be very volatile when first created, will become less active or cool, and then will eventually cease to be accessed at all (i.e. cold). I think the reason this question gets asked is because customers realize that many of their business processes are cyclical and the thinking goes that those segments that only get used during month end or year-end cycles could sit on lower cost storage when not being used. Unfortunately this doesn't fit very well with the ADO storage tiering model. ADO storage tiering is based on the amount of free and used space in the source tablespace. There are two parameters that control this behavior, TBS_PERCENT_USED and TBS_PERCENT_FREE. When the space in the tablespace exceeds the TBS_PERCENT_USED value then segments specified in storage tiering clause(s) can be moved until the percent of free space reaches the TBS_PERCENT_FREE value. It is worth mentioning that no checks are made for available space in the target tablespace. Now, it is certainly possible to create custom functions to control storage tiering, but this can get complicated. The biggest problem is insuring that there is enough space to move the segment back to tier 1 storage, assuming that that's the goal. This isn't as much of a problem when moving from tier 1 to tier 2 storage because there is typically more tier 2 storage available. At least that's the premise since it is supposed to be less costly, lower performing and higher capacity storage. In either case though, if there isn't enough space then the operation fails. In the case of a customized function, the question becomes do you attempt to free the space so the move can be made or do you just stop and return false so that the move cannot take place? This is really the crux of the issue. Once you cross into this territory you're really going to have to implement two-way hierarchical storage and the whole point of ADO was to provide automatic storage tiering. You're probably better off using heat map and/or business access requirements and building your own hierarchical storage management infrastructure if you really want two way storage tiering. /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• Spotlight on an office – Utrecht

  - by Maria Sandu

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} This time in our monthly topic, we have our spotlight on the brand new Oracle office in Utrecht, the Netherlands. About 35km south-east of Schiphol Airport and centrally located in the Netherlands, Oracle moved into the Facet building in March 2011. Facet is much more than an office building, it creates a work environment that relates to the ‘No Limits’ philosophy Oracle has in the Netherlands. “No Limits” means the building belongs to everyone. You choose the best place to work, based on the activities of that moment. To point this out, we currently have 1050 people working for Oracle Netherlands, and 623 workplaces. There is virtually no limit to where you can sit in our shiny new offices; we no longer have 'zoning', where departments own specific areas in the building, Even the Managing Director of Oracle Netherlands, does not have an office and he chooses a different working place every day. So make sure you are prepared when he is sitting next to you one day! If nobody has a fixed workplace, then you would think that finding a colleague could be tricky. Oracle uses CU (‘SeeYou’) which makes all of us easier to locate. Upon entering the building you receive a text stating where the greatest concentration of your buddies is sitting. Our internal messaging service also proves to be very valuable finding your colleagues. The heart of our building is the great RestOrant, with a very busy coffee bar. It offers an informal place for people to meet and is busy all day, not just at lunch time! The O-Bar in the atrium on the ground floor is also a very popular place to meet and drink tea or coffee and gives a breathtaking introduction to the office to any of our first time visitors. For a few minutes of relaxation during the working day, there are table tennis facilities and a Wii room on every floor! So if you are interested in joining Oracle in this Netherlands or anywhere else in EMEA, please have a look at http://campus.oracle.com for all of our latest vacancies and internships.

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• Using HTML5 Today part 3&ndash; Using Polyfills

  - by Steve Albers

  Shims helps when adding semantic tags to older IE browsers, but there is a huge range of other new HTML5 features that having varying support on browsers.  Polyfills are JavaScript code and/or browser plug-ins that can provide older or less featured browsers with API support.  The best polyfills will detect the whether the current browser has native support, and only adds the functionality if necessary.  The Douglas Crockford JSON2.js library is an example of this approach: if the browser already supports the JSON object, nothing changes.  If JSON is not available, the library adds a JSON property in the global object. This approach provides some big benefits: It lets you add great new HTML5 features to your web sites sooner. It lets the developer focus on writing to the up-and-coming standard rather than proprietary APIs. Where most one-off legacy code fixes tends to break down over time, well done polyfills will stop executing over time (as customer browsers natively support the feature) meaning polyfill code may not need to be tested against new browsers since they will execute the native methods instead. Your should also remember that Polyfills represent an entirely separate code path (and sometimes plug-in) that requires testing for support.  Also Polyfills tend to run on older browsers, which often have slower JavaScript performance.  As a result you might find that performance on older browsers is not comparable. When looking for Polyfills you can start by checking the Modernizr GitHub wiki or the HTML5 Please site. For an example of a polyfill consider a page that writes a few geometric shapes on a <canvas> <script src="jquery-1.7.1.min.js"><script> <script> $(document).ready(function () { drawCanvas(); }); function drawCanvas() { var context = $("canvas")[0].getContext('2d'); //background context.fillStyle = "#8B0000"; context.fillRect(5, 5, 300, 100); // emptybox context.strokeStyle = "#B0C4DE"; context.lineWidth = 4; context.strokeRect(20, 15, 80, 80); // circle context.arc(160, 55, 40, 0, Math.PI * 2, false); context.fillStyle = "#4B0082"; context.fill(); </script>   The result is a simple static canvas with a box & a circle:   …to enable this functionality on a pre-canvas browser we can find a polyfill.  A check on html5please.com references  FlashCanvas.  Pull down the zip and extract the files (flashcanvas.js, flash10canvas.swf, etc) to a directory on your site.  Then based on the documentation you need to add a single line to your original HTML file: <!--[if lt IE 9]><script src="flashcanvas.js"></script><![endif]—> …and you have canvas functionality!  The IE conditional comments ensure that the library is only loaded in browsers where it is useful, improving page load & processing time. Like all Polyfills, you should test to verify the functionality matches your expectations across browsers you need to support.  For instance the Flash Canvas home page advertises 70% support of HTML5 Canvas spec tests.

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• Why googling by keycaptcha gives results on reCAPTCHA? [closed]

  - by vgv8

  EDIT: I'd like to change this title to: How to STOP Google's manipulation of Google search engine presented to general public? I am frequently googling and more and more frequently bump when searching by one software product I am given instead the results on Google's own products. For ex., if I google by keyword keycaptcha for the "Past 24 hours" (after clicking on "Show search tools" -- "Past 24 hours" on the left sidebar of a browser) I am getting the Google's search results show only results on reCAPTCHA. Image uploaded later: Though, if confine keycaptcha in quotes the results are "correct" (well, kind of since they are still distorted in comparison with other search engines). I checked this during few months from different domains at different ISPs, different operating systems and from a dozen of browsers. The results are the same. Why is it and how can it be possibly corrected? My related posts: "How Gmail spam filter works?" IP adresses blacklisting Update: It is impossible for me to directly start using google.com as I am always redirected to google.ru (from google.com) by my ip-address "auto-detect location" google's "convenience". The google's help tells that it is impossible to switch off my location auto-detection because it is very helpful feature. There is a work-around to use google.com/ncr (to get google.com) (?anybody know what does it mean) to prevent redirection from google.com but even. But all results are exactly the same OK, I can search by quoted "keycaptcha", I am already accustomed to these google's quirks, but the question arises why the heck to burn time promoting someone's product if GOOGLE uses other product brands for showing its own interests/brands (reCAPTCHA) instead and what can be done with it? The general user will not understand that he was cheated and just will pick up the first (wrong) results Update2: Note that this googling behaviour: is independent on whether I am logged-in (or log-out-ed of) a google account, which account, on browser (I tried Opera, Chrome, FireFox, IE of different versions, Safari), OS or even domain; there are many such cases but I just targeted one concrete restricted example speciffically to to prevent wandering between unrelated details and peculiarities; @Michael, first it is not true and this text contains 2 links for real and significant results.. I also wrote that this is just one concrete example from many and based on many-month exp. These distortions happen upon clicking on: Past 24 hours, Past week, Past month, Past year in many other keywords, occasions/configurations of searches, etc. Second, the absence of the results is the result and there is no point to sneakingly substitute it by another unsolicited one. It is the definition of spam and scam. 3d, the question is not abt workarounds like how to write search queries or use another searching engines. The question is how to straighten the googling's results in order to stop disorienting general public about. Update: I could not understand: nobody reproduces the described by me behavior (i.e. when I click "Past 24 hours" link in google search searching for keycaptcha, the presented results are only on reCAPTCHA presented)? Update: And for the "Past week":

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• An observation on .NET loops – foreach, for, while, do-while

  It’s very common that .NET programmers use “foreach” loop for iterating through collections. Following is my observation whilst I was testing simple scenario on loops. “for” loop is 30% faster than “foreach” and “while” loop is 50% faster than “foreach”. “do-while” is bit faster than “while”. Someone may feel that how does it make difference if I’m iterating only 1000 times in a loop. This test case is only for simple iteration. According to the "Data structure" concepts, best and worst cases are completely based on the data we provide to the algorithm. so we can not conclude that a "foreach" algorithm is not good. All I want to tell that we need to be little cautious even choosing the loops. Example:- You might want to chose quick sort when you want to sort more numbers. At the same time bubble sort may be effective than quick sort when you want to sort less numbers. Take a simple scenario, a request of a simple web application fetches the data of 10000 (10K) rows and iterating them for some business logic. Think, this application is being accessed by 1000 (1K) people simultaneously. In this simple scenario you are ending up with 10000000 (10Million or 1 Crore) iterations. below is the test scenario with simple console application to test 100 Million records. using System;using System.Collections.Generic;using System.Diagnostics;namespace ConsoleApplication1{ class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { var sw = new Stopwatch(); var numbers = GetSomeNumbers(); sw.Start(); foreach (var item in numbers) { } sw.Stop(); Console.WriteLine( String.Format("\"foreach\" took {0} milliseconds", sw.ElapsedMilliseconds)); sw.Reset(); sw.Start(); for (int i = 0; i < numbers.Count; i++) { } sw.Stop(); Console.WriteLine( String.Format("\"for\" loop took {0} milliseconds", sw.ElapsedMilliseconds)); sw.Reset(); sw.Start(); var it = 0; while (it++ < numbers.Count) { } sw.Stop(); Console.WriteLine( String.Format("\"while\" loop took {0} milliseconds", sw.ElapsedMilliseconds)); sw.Reset(); sw.Start(); var it2 = 0; do { } while (it2++ < numbers.Count); sw.Stop(); Console.WriteLine( String.Format("\"do-while\" loop took {0} milliseconds", sw.ElapsedMilliseconds)); } #region Get me 10Crore (100 Million) numbers private static List<int> GetSomeNumbers() { var lstNumbers = new List<int>(); var count = 100000000; for (var i = 1; i <= count; i++) { lstNumbers.Add(i); } return lstNumbers; } #endregion Get me some numbers }} In above example, I was just iterating through 100 Million numbers. You can see the time to execute various  loops provided in .NET Output "foreach" took 1108 milliseconds "for" loop took 727 milliseconds "while" loop took 596 milliseconds "do-while" loop took 594 milliseconds   Press any key to continue . . . So I feel we need to be careful while choosing the looping strategy. Please comment your thoughts. span.fullpost {display:none;}

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• Consolidation in a Database Cloud

  - by B R Clouse

  Consolidation of multiple databases onto a shared infrastructure is the next step after Standardization.  The potential consolidation density is a function of the extent to which the infrastructure is shared.  The three models provide increasing degrees of sharing: Server: each database is deployed in a dedicated VM. Hardware is shared, but most of the software infrastructure is not. Standardization is often applied incompletely since operating environments can be moved as-is onto the shared platform. The potential for VM sprawl is an additional downside. Database: multiple database instances are deployed on a shared software / hardware infrastructure. This model is very efficient and easily implemented with the features in the Oracle Database and supporting products. Many customers have moved to this model and achieved significant, measurable benefits. Schema: multiple schemas are deployed within a single database instance. The most efficient model, it places constraints on the environment. Usually this model will be implemented only by customers deploying their own applications.  (Note that a single deployment can combine Database and Schema consolidations.) Customer value: lower costs, better system utilization In this phase of the maturity model, under-utilized hardware can be used to host more workloads, or retired and those workloads migrated to consolidation platforms. Customers benefit from higher utilization of the hardware resources, resulting in reduced data center floor space, and lower power and cooling costs. And, the OpEx savings from Standardization are multiplied, since there are fewer physical components (both hardware and software) to manage. Customer value: higher productivity The OpEx benefits from Standardization are compounded since not only are there fewer types of things to manage, now there are fewer entities to manage. In this phase, customers discover that their IT staff has time to move away from "day-to-day" tasks and start investing in higher value activities. Database users benefit from consolidating onto shared infrastructures by relieving themselves of the requirement to maintain their own dedicated servers. Also, if the shared infrastructure offers capabilities such as High Availability / Disaster Recovery, which are often beyond the budget and skillset of a standalone database environment, then moving to the consolidation platform can provide access to those capabilities, resulting in less downtime. Capabilities / Characteristics In this phase, customers will typically deploy fixed-size clusters and consolidate on a cluster until that cluster is deemed "full," at which point a new cluster is built. Customers will define one or a few cluster architectures that are used wherever possible; occasionally there may be deployments which must be handled as exceptions. The "full" policy may be based on number of databases deployed on the cluster, or observed peak workload, etc. IT will own the provisioning of new databases on a cluster, making the decision of when and where to place new workloads. Resources may be managed dynamically, e.g., as a priority workload increases, it may be given more CPU and memory to handle the spike. Users will be charged at a fixed, relatively coarse level; or in some cases, no charging will be applied. Activities / Tasks Oracle offers several tools to plan a successful consolidation. Real Application Testing (RAT) has a feature to help plan and validate database consolidations. Enterprise Manager 12c's Cloud Management Pack for Database includes a planning module. Looking ahead, customers should start planning for the Services phase by defining the Service Catalog that will be made available for database services.

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• Try the Oracle Database Appliance Manager Configurator - For Fun!

  - by pwstephe-Oracle

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 If you would like to get a first hand glimpse of how easy it is to configure an ODA, even if you don’t have access to one, it’s possible to download the Appliance Manager Configurator from the Oracle Technology Network, and run it standalone on your PC or Linux/Unix  workstation. The configurator is packaged in a zip file that contains the complete Java environment to run standalone. Once the package is downloaded and unzipped it’s simply a matter of launching it using the config command or shell depending on your runtime environment. Oracle Appliance Manager Configurator is a Java-based tool that enables you to input your deployment plan and validate your network settings before an actual deployment, or you can just preview and experiment with it. Simply download and run the configurator on a local client system which can be a Windows, Linux, or UNIX system. (For Windows launch the batch file config.bat for Linux/Unix environments, run  ./ config.sh). You will be presented with the very same dialogs and options used to configure a production ODA but on your workstation. At the end of a configurator session, you may save your deployment plan in a configuration file. If you were actually ready to deploy, you could copy this configuration file to a real ODA where the online Oracle Appliance Manager Configurator would use the contents to deploy your plan in production. You may also print the file’s content and use the printout as a checklist for setting up your production external network configuration. Be sure to use the actual production network addresses you intend to use it as this will only work correctly if your client system is connected to same network that will be used for the ODA. (This step is not necessary if you are just previewing the Configurator). This is a great way to get an introductory look at the simple and intuitive Database Appliance configuration interface and the steps to configure a system. /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• What Counts for a DBA: Skill

  - by drsql

  “Practice makes perfect:” right? Well, not exactly. The reality of it all is that this saying is an untrustworthy aphorism. I discovered this in my “younger” days when I was a passionate tennis player, practicing and playing 20+ hours a week. No matter what my passion level was, without some serious coaching (and perhaps a change in dietary habits), my skill level was never going to rise to a level where I could make any money at the sport that involved something other than selling tennis balls at a sporting goods store. My game may have improved with all that practice but I had too many bad practices to overcome. Practice by itself merely reinforces what we know and what we can figure out naturally. The truth is actually closer to the expression used by Vince Lombardi: “Perfect practice makes perfect.” So how do you get to become skilled as a DBA if practice alone isn’t sufficient? Hit the Internet and start searching for SQL training and you can find 100 different sites. There are also hundreds of blogs, magazines, books, conferences both onsite and virtual. But then how do you know who is good? Unfortunately often the worst guide can be to find out the experience level of the writer. Some of the best DBAs are frighteningly young, and some got their start back when databases were stored on stacks of paper with little holes in it. As a programmer, is it really so hard to understand normalization? Set based theory? Query optimization? Indexing and performance tuning? The biggest barrier often is previous knowledge, particularly programming skills cultivated before you get started with SQL. In the world of technology, it is pretty rare that a fresh programmer will gravitate to database programming. Database programming is very unsexy work, because without a UI all you have are a bunch of text strings that you could never impress anyone with. Newbies spend most of their time building UIs or apps with procedural code in C# or VB scoring obvious interesting wins. Making matters worse is that SQL programming requires mastery of a much different toolset than most any mainstream programming skill. Instead of controlling everything yourself, most of the really difficult work is done by the internals of the engine (written by other non-relational programmers…we just can’t get away from them.) So is there a golden road to achieving a high skill level? Sadly, with tennis, I am pretty sure I’ll never discover it. However, with programming it seems to boil down to practice in applying the appropriate techniques for whatever type of programming you are doing. Can a C# programmer build a great database? As long as they don’t treat SQL like C#, absolutely. Same goes for a DBA writing C# code. None of this stuff is rocket science, as long as you learn to understand that different types of programming require different skill sets and you as a programmer must recognize the difference between one of the procedural languages and SQL and treat them differently. Skill comes from practicing doing things the right way and making “right” a habit.

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• Using WKA in Large Coherence Clusters (Disabling Multicast)

  - by jpurdy

  Disabling hardware multicast (by configuring well-known addresses aka WKA) will place significant stress on the network. For messages that must be sent to multiple servers, rather than having a server send a single packet to the switch and having the switch broadcast that packet to the rest of the cluster, the server must send a packet to each of the other servers. While hardware varies significantly, consider that a server with a single gigabit connection can send at most ~70,000 packets per second. To continue with some concrete numbers, in a cluster with 500 members, that means that each server can send at most 140 cluster-wide messages per second. And if there are 10 cluster members on each physical machine, that number shrinks to 14 cluster-wide messages per second (or with only mild hyperbole, roughly zero). It is also important to keep in mind that network I/O is not only expensive in terms of the network itself, but also the consumption of CPU required to send (or receive) a message (due to things like copying the packet bytes, processing a interrupt, etc). Fortunately, Coherence is designed to rely primarily on point-to-point messages, but there are some features that are inherently one-to-many: Announcing the arrival or departure of a member Updating partition assignment maps across the cluster Creating or destroying a NamedCache Invalidating a cache entry from a large number of client-side near caches Distributing a filter-based request across the full set of cache servers (e.g. queries, aggregators and entry processors) Invoking clear() on a NamedCache The first few of these are operations that are primarily routed through a single senior member, and also occur infrequently, so they usually are not a primary consideration. There are cases, however, where the load from introducing new members can be substantial (to the point of destabilizing the cluster). Consider the case where cluster in the first paragraph grows from 500 members to 1000 members (holding the number of physical machines constant). During this period, there will be 500 new member introductions, each of which may consist of several cluster-wide operations (for the cluster membership itself as well as the partitioned cache services, replicated cache services, invocation services, management services, etc). Note that all of these introductions will route through that one senior member, which is sharing its network bandwidth with several other members (which will be communicating to a lesser degree with other members throughout this process). While each service may have a distinct senior member, there's a good chance during initial startup that a single member will be the senior for all services (if those services start on the senior before the second member joins the cluster). It's obvious that this could cause CPU and/or network starvation. In the current release of Coherence (3.7.1.3 as of this writing), the pure unicast code path also has less sophisticated flow-control for cluster-wide messages (compared to the multicast-enabled code path), which may also result in significant heap consumption on the senior member's JVM (from the message backlog). This is almost never a problem in practice, but with sufficient CPU or network starvation, it could become critical. For the non-operational concerns (near caches, queries, etc), the application itself will determine how much load is placed on the cluster. Applications intended for deployment in a pure unicast environment should be careful to avoid excessive dependence on these features. Even in an environment with multicast support, these operations may scale poorly since even with a constant request rate, the underlying workload will increase at roughly the same rate as the underlying resources are added. Unless there is an infrastructural requirement to the contrary, multicast should be enabled. If it can't be enabled, care should be taken to ensure the added overhead doesn't lead to performance or stability issues. This is particularly crucial in large clusters.

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• Red Meat's Music is Rare - and Well Done

  - by Oracle OpenWorld Blog Team

  By Karen Shamban The blogger has questions; San Francisco-based country band Red Meat has answers. Although we forgot to ask how they got their band name, dang it. Read on and enjoy the honesty and insight. Q. What do you like best about performing in front of a live audience?A. Probably just having fun and entertaining the audience. We've been together for almost two decades, and in that time we've played for crowds of five people, and for crowds of more than 15,000. Both are equally important to us, and just as fun. We turn Jill and Smelley loose on the between-songs repartee, and let the songs shine through. On the best night, we feed on the audience's love and vice-versa. It's emotional vampirism of the best sort. [Blogger's note: now that whole "red meat" thing is starting to make sense ...] Q. Do you prefer smaller, intimate venues or larger, louder ones? Why?A. We love both. Whether it's a chance to connect with a small room or huge audience, we always try to hit 'em between the eyes! Q. What about your fans surprises you?A. Since we've been together for so long, we're pretty much on our third generation of fans now. We're excited that the Bakersfield sound has that same effect on the new, younger fans as it did on the punk rockers that we played to 20 years ago. And we still see them at our shows too! Q. What about your live act surprises your fans?A. For people who haven't seen Red Meat before, they may be dragged to a show thinking they don't like country music. But they're surprised to hear it done in a way that excites them so much. We get a lot of first-timers coming up to us after a performance and asking, "Wait, THAT'S what country music can sound like?" Q. There are going to be a lot of technical people (you could call them geeks) in the Oracle crowd - what are they going to love about your performance?A. Just what everyone loves about a Red Meat show - the chance to drink beer, dance, get rowdy, and have a great time. Q. Have you been on tour recently? If so, what do you like about touring, and what do you dislike?A. Actually, we're going to be coming off the road immediately into the Oracle OpenWorld Music Festival, having just played some Texas dates. On tour, we love playing for fans who don't get to see us as often as our California fans do. And food. Most of our conversations in the van center around food. Q. Ever think about playing another kind of music? If so, what, and why?A. Our tastes and influences in the band run all over the place. Obviously we love the Bakersfield artists - Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Dwight Yoakam - but we love other types of roots music as well, along with the Beatles, NRBQ, MC5, punk/new wave, and countless bar bands that we've had the privilege of playing with through the years. But as far as playing a different kind of music as Red Meat? Nah. We love what we're doing. Q. What are the top three things people should know about your music?A1. Country music, done right, has unlimited soul.A2. Red Meat is a modern band, playing original material, with a great debt to the Bakersfield sound of Buck Owens and Merle Haggard.A3. It's FUN. More details on the Festival and the band: Oracle OpenWorld Music Festival Red Meat

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• Oracle Excellence Award

  - by Hartmut Wiese

  CALL FOR NOMINATIONS 2014 Oracle Excellence Award: Sustainability Innovation Is your organization using an Oracle product to help with a sustainability initiative while reducing costs? Saving energy? Saving gas? Saving paper? For example, you may use Oracle’s Agile Product Lifecycle Management to design more eco-friendly products, Oracle Transportation Management to reduce fleet emissions, Oracle Exadata Database Machine to decrease power and cooling needs while increasing database performance, Oracle Business Intelligence to measure environmental impacts, or one of many other Oracle products. Your organization may be eligible for the 2014 Oracle Excellence Award: Sustainability Innovation. Submit a nomination form located here by Friday June 20 if your company is using any Oracle product to take an environmental lead as well as to reduce costs and improve business efficiencies by using green business practices. These awards will be presented during Oracle OpenWorld 2014 (September 28-October 2) in San Francisco.  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 About the Award • Winners will be selected from the customer and/or partner nominations. Either a customer, their partner, or Oracle representative can submit the nomination form on behalf of the customer.• There is a nomination form here to discuss your use of Oracle products and how they have helped your sustainability efforts and reduced costs. • Winners will be selected based on the extent of the environmental impact they have had as well as the business efficiencies they have achieved through their combined use of Oracle products. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Nomination Eligibility • Your company uses at least one component of Oracle products, whether it's the Oracle database, business applications, Fusion Middleware, or Sun servers/storage. • This solution should be in production or in active development. • Nomination deadline: Friday June 20, 2014. Benefits to Award Winners • Award presented to winners during Oracle OpenWorld by Jeff Henley, Oracle Chairman of the Board • Free Oracle OpenWorld registration pass for each winning customer • 2014 Oracle Excellence Award: Sustainability Innovation award logo for inclusion on your own website &/or press release • Possible placement in Oracle Profit Magazine &/or Oracle Magazine • ‘Enable the Eco-Enterprise’ podcast opportunity See last year's winners here Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 ______________________________________________________________________________________ Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Questions? Send an email to: [email protected] Follow Oracle’s Sustainability Solutions on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and the Sustainability Matters blog Web page with award details:  http://www.oracle.com/us/products/applications/green/call-for-nominations-185050.html  

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• Planning development when academic research is involved

  - by Another Anonymous User

  Dear fellow programmers, how do you do "software planning" when academic research is involved? And, on a side note, how do you convince your boss that writing software is not like building a house and it's more like writing a novel? The gory details are below. I am in charge of a small dev team working in a research lab. We started developing a software with the purpose of going public one day (i.e. sell and make money off that). Such software depends on, amongst other things, at least two independent research lines: that is, there are at least two Ph.D. candidates that will, hopefully, one day come out with a working implementation of what we need. The main software depends also on other, more concrete resources that we as developers can take care of: graphics rendering, soft bodies deformation, etc. My boss asked me to write the specifications, requirements AND a bloody GANTT chart of the entire project. Faced with the fact that I don't have a clue about the research part, and that such research is fundamental for the software, he said "make assumptions." For the clarity of the argument, he is a professor whose Ph.D. students should come up with the research we need. And he comes from a strictly engineering background: plan everything first, write down specifications and only then write down code that "it's the last part". What I am doing now: I broke down the product in features; each 'feature' is, de facto, a separate product; Each feature is built on top of the previous one; Once a feature (A) has a working prototype the team can start working on the next feature (B), while QA for is being done for A (if money allows, more people can be brought in, etc.); Features that depend on research will come last: by then, hopefully, the research part will be completed (when is still a big question) ; Also, I set the team to use SCRUM for the development of 'version 1.0', due in a few months. This deadline could be set based on reasonable assumptions: we listed all required features, we counted our availability, and we gave a reasonable estimate. So my questions, again, are: How do I make my boss happy while at the same time get something out the door? How do I write specifications for something we -the developers- have no clue whether it's possible to do or not? (We still haven't decided which libraries to use for some tasks; we'll do so when we'll need to) How do I get the requirements for that, given that there are yet no clients nor investors, just lots of interests and promises? How do I get peace in the world? I am sure at least one of my questions will be answered :) ps: I am writing this anonymously since a potential investor might backfire if this is discovered. Hope you'll understand. However I must say I do not like this mentality of 'hiding the truth': this program will likely benefit many, and not being able to talk openly about this (with my name and my reputation attached) feels like censorship. But alas, I care more about your suggestions now.

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• Customer Loyalty vs. Customer Engagement: Who Cares?

  - by Jeb Dasteel-Oracle

  Have you read the recent Forbes OracleVoice blog titled Customer Loyalty is Dead. Long Live Engagement!? If you haven’t, take a look. This article prompted lots of conversation in the social realm. Many who read the article voiced their reactions to the headline and now I’m jumping in to add my view. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE Customer loyalty is still key. It’s the effect and engagement is the cause. We at least know that to be true for our customers. We are in an age where customers are demanding to be heard. We need them to be actively involved – or engaged – as well. Greater levels of customer engagement, properly targeted, positively correlate with satisfaction. Our data has shown us this over and over. Satisfied customers are more loyal and more willing to vocalize their satisfaction through referencing, and are more likely to purchase again, all of which in turn drives incremental revenue – from the customer doing the referencing AND the customer on the receiving end of that reference. Turning this around completely, if we begin to see the level of a customer’s engagement start to wane, this is an indicator that their satisfaction, loyalty, and future revenue are likely at risk. At Oracle, we’ve put in place many programs to target, encourage, and then track engagement, allowing us to measure engagement as a determinant of loyalty. Some of these programs include our Key Accounts, solution design and architectural, Executive Sponsorship, as well as executive advisory boards. Specific programs allow us to engage specific contacts within specific customer organizations (based on role) and then systematically track their engagement activities over time, along side of tracking customer satisfaction, loyalty, referenceability, and incremental revenue contribution. Continuous measurement of engagement allows us to better understand customer views of what it means to partner with a provider and adjust program participation to better meet the needs of the partnership. We can also track across customer segments, and design new programs that are even more effective than the ones we have in place today. In case you missed any of my previous Forbes articles, I’ve included links below for easy access. Award-Winning Companies Put Customers First The Power of Peer Networks: 5 Reasons to Get (and Stay) Involved Technology At Work: Traveling In Style Customer Central: 8 Strategies for Putting Customers at the Core of Your Business Technology at Work: Five Companies Doing IT Right /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• Multichannel Digital Engagement: Find Out How Your Organization Measures Up

  - by Michael Snow

  This article was originally published in the September 2013 Edition of the Oracle Information InDepth Newsletter ORACLE WEBCENTER EDITION Thanks to mobile and social technologies, interactive online experiences are now commonplace. Not only that, they give consumers more choices, influence, and control than ever before. So how can you make your organization stand out? The key building blocks for delivering exceptional cross-channel digital experiences are outlined below. Also, a new assessment tool is available to help you measure your organization's ability to deliver such experiences. A clearly defined digital strategy. The customer journey is growing increasingly complex, encompassing multiple touchpoints and channels. It used to be easy to map marketing efforts to specific offline channels; for example, a direct mail piece with an offer to visit a store for a discounted purchase. Now it is more difficult to cultivate and track such clear cause-and-effect relationships. To deliver an integrated digital experience in this more complex world, organizations need a clearly defined and comprehensive digital marketing strategy that is backed up by an integrated set of software, middleware, and hardware solutions. Strong support for business agility and speed-to-market. As both IT and marketing executives know, speed-to-market and business agility are key to competitive advantage. That means marketers need solutions to support the rapid implementation of online marketing initiatives—plus the flexibility to adapt quickly to a changing marketplace. And IT needs tools with the performance, scalability, and ease of integration to support marketing efforts. Both teams benefit when business users are empowered to implement marketing initiatives on their own, with minimal IT intervention. The ability to deliver relevant, personalized content. Delivering a one-size-fits-all online customer experience is no longer acceptable. Customers expect you to know who they are, including their preferences and past relationship with your brand. That means delivering the most relevant content from the moment a visitor enters your site. To make that happen, you need a powerful rules engine so that marketers and business users can easily define site visitor segments and deliver content accordingly. That includes both implicit targeting that is based on the user’s behavior, and explicit targeting that takes a user’s profile information into account. Ideally, the rules engine can also intelligently weight recommendations when multiple segments apply to a specific customer. Support for social interactivity. With the advent of Facebook and LinkedIn, visitors expect to participate in and contribute to your web presence—and share their experience on their own social networks. That requires easy incorporation of user-generated content such as comments, ratings, reviews, polls, and blogs; seamless integration with third-party social networking sites; and support for social login, which helps to remove barriers to social participation. The ability to deliver connected, multichannel experiences that include powerful, flexible mobile capabilities. By 2015, mobile usage is projected to surpass that of PCs and other wired devices. In other words, mobile is an essential element in delivering exceptional online customer experiences. This requires the creation and management of mobile experiences that are optimized for delivery to the thousands of different devices that are in use today. Just as important, organizations must be able to easily extend their traditional web presence to the mobile channel and deliver highly personalized and relevant multichannel marketing initiatives while also managing to minimize the time and effort required to manage mobile sites. Are you curious to know how your organization measures up when it comes to delivering an engaging, multichannel digital experience? If so, take this brief, 15-question online assessment and see how your organization scores in the areas of digital strategy, digital agility, relevance and personalization, social interactivity, and multichannel experience.

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• DirectX particle system. ConstantBuffer

  - by Liuka

  I'm new in DirectX and I'm making a 2D game. I want to use a particle system to simulate a 3D starfield, so each star has to set its own constant buffer for the vertexshader es. to set it's world matrix. So if i have 500 stars (that move every frame) i need to call 500 times VSsetconstantbuffer, and map/unmap each buffer. with 500 stars i have an average of 220 fps and that's quite good. My bottelneck is Vs/PsSetconstantbuffer. If i dont call this function i have 400 fps(obliviously nothing is display, since i dont set the position of the stars). So is there a method to speed up the render of the particle system?? Ps. I'm using intel integrate graphic (hd 2000-3000). with a nvidia (or amd) gpu will i have the same bottleneck?? If, for example, i dont call setshaderresource i have 10-20 fps more (for 500 objcets), that is not 180.Why does SetConstantBuffer take so long?? LPVOID VSdataPtr = VSmappedResource.pData; memcpy(VSdataPtr, VSdata, CszVSdata); context->Unmap(VertexBuffer, 0); result = context->Map(PixelBuffer, 0, D3D11_MAP_WRITE_DISCARD, 0, &PSmappedResource); if (FAILED(result)) { outputResult.OutputErrorMessage(TITLE, L"Cannot map the PixelBuffer", &result, OUTPUT_ERROR_FILE); return; } LPVOID PSdataPtr = PSmappedResource.pData; memcpy(PSdataPtr, PSdata, CszPSdata); context->Unmap(PixelBuffer, 0); context->VSSetConstantBuffers(0, 1, &VertexBuffer); context->PSSetConstantBuffers(0, 1, &PixelBuffer); this update and set the buffer. It's part of the render method of a sprite class that contains a the vertex buffer and the texture to apply to the quads(it's a 2d game) too. I have an array of 500 stars (sprite setup with a star texture). Every frame: clear back buffer; draw the array of stars; present the backbuffer; draw also call the function update( which calculate the position of the sprite on screen based on a "camera class") Ok, create a vertex buffer with the vertices of each quads(stars) seems to be good, since the stars don't change their "virtual" position; so.... In a particle system (where particles move) it's better to have all the object in only one vertices array, rather then an array of different sprite/object in order to update all the vertices' position with a single setbuffer call. In this case i have to use a dynamic vertex buffer with the vertices positions like this: verticesForQuad={{ XMFLOAT3((float)halfDImensions.x-1+pos.x, (float)halfDImensions.y-1+pos.y, 1.0f), XMFLOAT2(1.0f, 0.0f) }, { XMFLOAT3((float)halfDImensions.x-1+pos.x, -(float)halfDImensions.y-1+pos.y, 1.0f), XMFLOAT2(1.0f, 1.0f) }, { XMFLOAT3(-(float)halfDImensions.x-1+pos.x, (float)halfDImensions.y-1.pos.y, 1.0f), XMFLOAT2(0.0f, 0.0f) }, { XMFLOAT3(-(float)halfDImensions.x-1.pos.x, -(float)halfDImensions.y-1+pos.y, 1.0f), XMFLOAT2(0.0f, 1.0f) }, ....other quads} where halfDimensions is the halfsize in pixel of a texture and pos the virtual position of a star. than create an array of verticesForQuad and create the vertex buffer ZeroMemory(&vertexDesc, sizeof(vertexDesc)); vertexDesc.Usage = D3D11_USAGE_DEFAULT; vertexDesc.BindFlags = D3D11_BIND_VERTEX_BUFFER; vertexDesc.ByteWidth = sizeof(VertexType)* 4*numStars; ZeroMemory(&resourceData, sizeof(resourceData)); resourceData.pSysMem = verticesForQuad; result = device->CreateBuffer(&vertexDesc, &resourceData, &CvertexBuffer); and call each frame Context->IASetVertexBuffers(0, 1, &CvertexBuffer, &stride, &offset); But if i want to add and remove obj i have to recreate the buffer each time, havent i?? There is a faster way? I think i can create a vertex buffer with a max size (es. 10000 objs) and when i update it set only the 250 position (for 250 onjs for example) and pass this number as the vertexCount to the draw function (numObjs*4), or i'm worng

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• Asynchrony in C# 5 (Part II)

  - by javarg

  This article is a continuation of the series of asynchronous features included in the new Async CTP preview for next versions of C# and VB. Check out Part I for more information. So, let’s continue with TPL Dataflow: Asynchronous functions TPL Dataflow Task based asynchronous Pattern Part II: TPL Dataflow Definition (by quote of Async CTP doc): “TPL Dataflow (TDF) is a new .NET library for building concurrent applications. It promotes actor/agent-oriented designs through primitives for in-process message passing, dataflow, and pipelining. TDF builds upon the APIs and scheduling infrastructure provided by the Task Parallel Library (TPL) in .NET 4, and integrates with the language support for asynchrony provided by C#, Visual Basic, and F#.” This means: data manipulation processed asynchronously. “TPL Dataflow is focused on providing building blocks for message passing and parallelizing CPU- and I/O-intensive applications”. Data manipulation is another hot area when designing asynchronous and parallel applications: how do you sync data access in a parallel environment? how do you avoid concurrency issues? how do you notify when data is available? how do you control how much data is waiting to be consumed? etc.  Dataflow Blocks TDF provides data and action processing blocks. Imagine having preconfigured data processing pipelines to choose from, depending on the type of behavior you want. The most basic block is the BufferBlock<T>, which provides an storage for some kind of data (instances of <T>). So, let’s review data processing blocks available. Blocks a categorized into three groups: Buffering Blocks Executor Blocks Joining Blocks Think of them as electronic circuitry components :).. 1. BufferBlock<T>: it is a FIFO (First in First Out) queue. You can Post data to it and then Receive it synchronously or asynchronously. It synchronizes data consumption for only one receiver at a time (you can have many receivers but only one will actually process it). 2. BroadcastBlock<T>: same FIFO queue for messages (instances of <T>) but link the receiving event to all consumers (it makes the data available for consumption to N number of consumers). The developer can provide a function to make a copy of the data if necessary. 3. WriteOnceBlock<T>: it stores only one value and once it’s been set, it can never be replaced or overwritten again (immutable after being set). As with BroadcastBlock<T>, all consumers can obtain a copy of the value. 4. ActionBlock<TInput>: this executor block allows us to define an operation to be executed when posting data to the queue. Thus, we must pass in a delegate/lambda when creating the block. Posting data will result in an execution of the delegate for each data in the queue. You could also specify how many parallel executions to allow (degree of parallelism). 5. TransformBlock<TInput, TOutput>: this is an executor block designed to transform each input, that is way it defines an output parameter. It ensures messages are processed and delivered in order. 6. TransformManyBlock<TInput, TOutput>: similar to TransformBlock but produces one or more outputs from each input. 7. BatchBlock<T>: combines N single items into one batch item (it buffers and batches inputs). 8. JoinBlock<T1, T2, …>: it generates tuples from all inputs (it aggregates inputs). Inputs could be of any type you want (T1, T2, etc.). 9. BatchJoinBlock<T1, T2, …>: aggregates tuples of collections. It generates collections for each type of input and then creates a tuple to contain each collection (Tuple<IList<T1>, IList<T2>>). Next time I will show some examples of usage for each TDF block. * Images taken from Microsoft’s Async CTP documentation.

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• Is Visual Source Safe (The latest Version) really that bad? Why? What's the Best Alternative? Why? [closed]

  - by hanzolo

  Over the years I've constantly heard horror stories, had people say "Real Programmers Dont Use VSS", and so on. BUT, then in the workplace I've worked at two companies, one, a very well known public facing high traffic website, and another high end Financial Services "Web-Based" hosted solution catering to some very large, very well known companies, which is where I currently Reside and everything's working just fine (KNOCK KNOCK!!). I'm constantly interfacing with EXTREMELY Old technology with some of these financial institutions.. OLD LIKE YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE.. which leads me to the conclusion that if it works "LEAVE IT", and that maybe there's some value in old technology? at least enough value to overrule a rewrite!? right?? Is there something fundamentally flawed with the underlying technology that VSS uses? I have a feeling that if i said "someone said VSS Sucks" they would beg to differ, most likely give me this look like i dont know -ish, and I'd never gain back their respect and my credibility (well, that'll be hard to blow.. lol), BUT, give me an argument that I can take to someone whose been coding for 30 years, that builds Platforms that leverage current technology (.NET 3.5 / SQL 2008 R2 ), write's their own ORM with scaffolding and is able to provide a quality platform that supports thousands of concurrent users on a multi-tenant hosted solution, and does not agree with any benefits from having Source Control Integrated, and yet uses the Infamous Visual Source Safe. I have extensive experience with TFS up to 2010, and honestly I think it's great when a team (beyond developers) can embrace it. I've worked side by side with someone whose a die hard SVN'r and from a purist standpoint, I see the beauty in it (I need a bit more, out of my SS, but it surely suffices). So, why are such smarties not running away from Visual Source Safe? surely if it was so bad, it would've have been realized by now, and I would not be sitting here with this simple old, Check In, Check Out, Version Resistant, Label Intensive system. But here I am... I would love to drop an argument that would be the end all argument, but if it's a matter of opinion and personal experience, there seems to be too much leeway for keeping VSS. UPDATE: I guess the best case is to have the VSS supporters check other people's experiences and draw from that until we (please no) experience the breaking factor ourselves. Until then, i wont be engaging in a discussion to migrate off of VSS.. UPDATE 11-2012: So i was able to convince everyone at my work place that since MS is sun downing Visual Source Safe it might be time to migrate over to TFS. I was able to convince them and have recently upgraded our team to Visual Studio 2012 and TFS 2012. The migration was fairly painless, had to run analyze.exe which found a bunch of errors (not sure they'll ever affect the project) and then manually run the VSSConverter.exe. Again, painless, except it took 16 hours to migrate 5 years worth of everything.. and now we're on TFS.. much more integrated.. much more cooler.. so all in all, VSS served it's purpose for years without hick-up. There were no horror stories and Visual Source Save as source control worked just fine. so to all the nay sayers (me included). there's nothing wrong with using VSS. i wouldnt start a new project with it, and i would definitely consider migrating to TFS. (it's really not super difficult and a new "wizard" type converter is due out any day now so migrating should be painless). But from my experience, it worked just fine and got the job done.

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• Validation and authorization in layered architecture

  - by SonOfPirate

  I know you are thinking (or maybe yelling), "not another question asking where validation belongs in a layered architecture?!?" Well, yes, but hopefully this will be a little bit of a different take on the subject. I am a firm believer that validation takes many forms, is context-based and varies at each level of the architecture. That is the basis for the post - helping to identify what type of validation should be performed in each layer. In addition, a question that often comes up is where authorization checks belong. The example scenario comes from an application for a catering business. Periodically during the day, a driver may turn in to the office any excess cash they've accumulated while taking the truck from site to site. The application allows a user to record the 'cash drop' by collecting the driver's ID, and the amount. Here's some skeleton code to illustrate the layers involved: public class CashDropApi // This is in the Service Facade Layer { [WebInvoke(Method = "POST")] public void AddCashDrop(NewCashDropContract contract) { // 1 Service.AddCashDrop(contract.Amount, contract.DriverId); } } public class CashDropService // This is the Application Service in the Domain Layer { public void AddCashDrop(Decimal amount, Int32 driverId) { // 2 CommandBus.Send(new AddCashDropCommand(amount, driverId)); } } internal class AddCashDropCommand // This is a command object in Domain Layer { public AddCashDropCommand(Decimal amount, Int32 driverId) { // 3 Amount = amount; DriverId = driverId; } public Decimal Amount { get; private set; } public Int32 DriverId { get; private set; } } internal class AddCashDropCommandHandler : IHandle<AddCashDropCommand> { internal ICashDropFactory Factory { get; set; } // Set by IoC container internal ICashDropRepository CashDrops { get; set; } // Set by IoC container internal IEmployeeRepository Employees { get; set; } // Set by IoC container public void Handle(AddCashDropCommand command) { // 4 var driver = Employees.GetById(command.DriverId); // 5 var authorizedBy = CurrentUser as Employee; // 6 var cashDrop = Factory.CreateCashDrop(command.Amount, driver, authorizedBy); // 7 CashDrops.Add(cashDrop); } } public class CashDropFactory { public CashDrop CreateCashDrop(Decimal amount, Employee driver, Employee authorizedBy) { // 8 return new CashDrop(amount, driver, authorizedBy, DateTime.Now); } } public class CashDrop // The domain object (entity) { public CashDrop(Decimal amount, Employee driver, Employee authorizedBy, DateTime at) { // 9 ... } } public class CashDropRepository // The implementation is in the Data Access Layer { public void Add(CashDrop item) { // 10 ... } } I've indicated 10 locations where I've seen validation checks placed in code. My question is what checks you would, if any, be performing at each given the following business rules (along with standard checks for length, range, format, type, etc): The amount of the cash drop must be greater than zero. The cash drop must have a valid Driver. The current user must be authorized to add cash drops (current user is not the driver). Please share your thoughts, how you have or would approach this scenario and the reasons for your choices.

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• Multitenancy in SQL Azure

  - by cibrax

  If you are building a SaaS application in Windows Azure that relies on SQL Azure, it’s probably that you will need to support multiple tenants at database level. This is short overview of the different approaches you can use for support that scenario, A different database per tenant A new database is created and assigned when a tenant is provisioned. Pros Complete isolation between tenants. All the data for a tenant lives in a database only he can access. Cons It’s not cost effective. SQL Azure databases are not cheap, and the minimum size for a database is 1GB.  You might be paying for storage that you don’t really use. A different connection pool is required per database. Updates must be replicated across all the databases You need multiple backup strategies across all the databases Multiple schemas in a database shared by all the tenants A single database is shared among all the tenants, but every tenant is assigned to a different schema and database user. Pros You only pay for a single database. Data is isolated at database level. If the credentials for one tenant is compromised, the rest of the data for the other tenants is not. Cons You need to replicate all the database objects in every schema, so the number of objects can increase indefinitely. Updates must be replicated across all the schemas. The connection pool for the database must maintain a different connection per tenant (or set of credentials) A different user is required per tenant, which is stored at server level. You have to backup that user independently. Centralizing the database access with store procedures in a database shared by all the tenants A single database is shared among all the tenants, but nobody can read the data directly from the tables. All the data operations are performed through store procedures that centralize the access to the tenant data. The store procedures contain some logic to map the database user to an specific tenant. Pros You only pay for a single database. You only have a set of objects to maintain and backup. Cons There is no real isolation. All the data for the different tenants is shared in the same tables. You can not use traditional ORM like EF code first for consuming the data. A different user is required per tenant, which is stored at server level. You have to backup that user independently. SQL Federations A single database is shared among all the tenants, but a different federation is used per tenant. A federation in few words, it’s a mechanism for horizontal scaling in SQL Azure, which basically uses the idea of logical partitions to distribute data based on certain criteria. Pros You only have a single database with multiple federations. You can use filtering in the connections to pick the right federation, so any ORM could be used to consume the data. Cons There is no real isolation at that database level. The isolation is enforced programmatically with federations.

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• Entity System with C++ templates

  - by tommaisey

  I've been getting interested in the Entity/Component style of game programming, and I've come up with a design in C++ which I'd like a critique of. I decided to go with a fairly pure Entity system, where entities are simply an ID number. Components are stored in a series of vectors - one for each Component type. However, I didn't want to have to add boilerplate code for every new Component type I added to the game. Nor did I want to use macros to do this, which frankly scare me. So I've come up with a system based on templates and type hinting. But there are some potential issues I'd like to check before I spend ages writing this (I'm a slow coder!) All Components derive from a Component base class. This base class has a protected constructor, that takes a string parameter. When you write a new derived Component class, you must initialise the base with the name of your new class in a string. When you first instantiate a new DerivedComponent, it adds the string to a static hashmap inside Component mapped to a unique integer id. When you subsequently instantiate more Components of the same type, no action is taken. The result (I think) should be a static hashmap with the name of each class derived from Component that you instantiate at least once, mapped to a unique id, which can by obtained with the static method Component::getTypeId ("DerivedComponent"). Phew. The next important part is TypedComponentList<typename PropertyType>. This is basically just a wrapper to an std::vector<typename PropertyType> with some useful methods. It also contains a hashmap of entity ID numbers to slots in the array so we can find Components by their entity owner. Crucially TypedComponentList<> is derived from the non-template class ComponentList. This allows me to maintain a list of pointers to ComponentList in my main ComponentManager, which actually point to TypedComponentLists with different template parameters (sneaky). The Component manager has template functions such as: template <typename ComponentType> void addProperty (ComponentType& component, int componentTypeId, int entityId) and: template <typename ComponentType> TypedComponentList<ComponentType>* getComponentList (int componentTypeId) which deal with casting from ComponentList to the correct TypedComponentList for you. So to get a list of a particular type of Component you call: TypedComponentList<MyComponent>* list = componentManager.getComponentList<MyComponent> (Component::getTypeId("MyComponent")); Which I'll admit looks pretty ugly. Bad points of the design: If a user of the code writes a new Component class but supplies the wrong string to the base constructor, the whole system will fail. Each time a new Component is instantiated, we must check a hashed string to see if that component type has bee instantiated before. Will probably generate a lot of assembly because of the extensive use of templates. I don't know how well the compiler will be able to minimise this. You could consider the whole system a bit complex - perhaps premature optimisation? But I want to use this code again and again, so I want it to be performant. Good points of the design: Components are stored in typed vectors but they can also be found by using their entity owner id as a hash. This means we can iterate them fast, and minimise cache misses, but also skip straight to the component we need if necessary. We can freely add Components of different types to the system without having to add and manage new Component vectors by hand. What do you think? Do the good points outweigh the bad?

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• Criminals and Other Illegal Characters

  - by Most Valuable Yak (Rob Volk)

  SQLTeam's favorite Slovenian blogger Mladen (b | t) had an interesting question on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/MladenPrajdic/status/347057950470307841 I liked Kendal Van Dyke's (b | t) reply: http://twitter.com/SQLDBA/status/347058908801667072 And he was right!  This is one of those pretty-useless-but-sounds-interesting propositions that I've based all my presentations on, and most of my blog posts. If you read all the replies you'll see a lot of good suggestions.  I particularly like Aaron Bertrand's (b | t) idea of going into the Unicode character set, since there are over 65,000 characters available.  But how to find an illegal character?  Detective work? I'm working on the premise that if SQL Server will reject it as a name it would throw an error.  So all we have to do is generate all Unicode characters, rename a database with that character, and catch any errors. It turns out that dynamic SQL can lend a hand here: IF DB_ID(N'a') IS NULL CREATE DATABASE [a]; DECLARE @c INT=1, @sql NVARCHAR(MAX)=N'', @err NVARCHAR(MAX)=N''; WHILE @c<65536 BEGIN BEGIN TRY SET @sql=N'alter database ' + QUOTENAME(CASE WHEN @c=1 THEN N'a' ELSE NCHAR(@c-1) END) + N' modify name=' + QUOTENAME(NCHAR(@c)); RAISERROR(N'*** Trying %d',10,1,@c) WITH NOWAIT; EXEC(@sql); SET @c+=1; END TRY BEGIN CATCH SET @err=ERROR_MESSAGE(); RAISERROR(N'Ooops - %d - %s',10,1,@c,@err) WITH NOWAIT; BREAK; END CATCH END SET @sql=N'alter database ' + QUOTENAME(NCHAR(@c-1)) + N' modify name=[a]'; EXEC(@sql); The script creates a dummy database "a" if it doesn't already exist, and only tests single characters as a database name.  If you have databases with single character names then you shouldn't run this on that server. It takes a few minutes to run, but if you do you'll see that no errors are thrown for any of the characters.  It seems that SQL Server will accept any character, no matter where they're from.  (Well, there's one, but I won't tell you which. Actually there's 2, but one of them requires some deep existential thinking.) The output is also interesting, as quite a few codes do some weird things there.  I'm pretty sure it's due to the font used in SSMS for the messages output window, not all characters are available.  If you run it using the SQLCMD utility, and use the -o switch to output to a file, and -u for Unicode output, you can open the file in Notepad or another text editor and see the whole thing. I'm not sure what character I'd recommend to answer Mladen's question.  I think the standard tab (ASCII 9) is fine.  There's also several specific separator characters in the original ASCII character set (decimal 28-31). But of all the choices available in Unicode whitespace, I think my favorite would be the Mongolian Vowel Separator.  Or maybe the zero-width space. (that'll be fun to print!)  And since this is Mladen we're talking about, here's a good selection of "intriguing" characters he could use.

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• Multidimensional multiple-choice knapsack problem: find a feasible solution

  - by Onheiron

  My assignment is to use local search heuristics to solve the Multidimensional multiple-choice knapsack problem, but to do so I first need to find a feasible solution to start with. Here is an example problem with what I tried so far. Problem R1 R2 R3 RESOUCES : 8 8 8 GROUPS: G1: 11.0 3 2 2 12.0 1 1 3 G2: 20.0 1 1 3 5.0 2 3 2 G3: 10.0 2 2 3 30.0 1 1 3 Sorting strategies To find a starting feasible solution for my local search I decided to ignore maximization of gains and just try to fit the resources requirements. I decided to sort the choices (strategies) in each group by comparing their "distance" from the multidimensional space origin, thus calculating SQRT(R1^2 + R2^2 + ... + RN^2). I felt like this was a keen solution as it somehow privileged those choices with resouce usages closer to each other (e.g. R1:2 R2:2 R3:2 < R1:1 R2:2 R3:3) even if the total sum is the same. Doing so and selecting the best choice from each group proved sufficent to find a feasible solution for many[30] different benchmark problems, but of course I knew it was just luck. So I came up with the problem presented above which sorts like this: R1 R2 R3 RESOUCES : 8 8 8 GROUPS: G1: 12.0 1 1 3 < select this 11.0 3 2 2 G2: 20.0 1 1 3 < select this 5.0 2 3 2 G3: 30.0 1 1 3 < select this 10.0 2 2 3 And it is not feasible because the resources consmption is R1:3, R2:3, R3:9. The easy solution is to pick one of the second best choices in group 1 or 2, so I'll need some kind of iteration (local search[?]) to find the starting feasible solution for my local search solution. Here are the options I came up with Option 1: iterate choices I tried to find a way to iterate all the choices with a specific order, something like G1 G2 G3 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 2 2 2 1 ... believeng that feasible solutions won't be that far away from the unfeasible one I start with and thus the number of iterations will keep quite low. Does this make any sense? If yes, how can I iterate the choices (grouped combinations) of each group keeping "as near as possibile" to the previous iteration? Option 2: Change the comparation term I tried to think how to find a better variable to sort the choices on. I thought at a measure of how "precious" a resource is based on supply and demand, so that an higer demand of a more precious resource will push you down the list, but this didn't help at all. Also I thought there probably isn't gonna be such a comparsion variable which assures me a feasible solution at first strike. I there such a variable? If not, is there a better sorting criteria anyways? Option 3: implement any known sub-optimal fast solving algorithm Unfortunately I could not find any of such algorithms online. Any suggestion?

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