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• 7u45 Caller-Allowable-Codebase and Trusted-Library

  - by costlow

  Java 7 update 45 (October 2013) changed the interactions between JavaScript and Java Applets made through LiveConnect. The 7u45 update is a critical patch update that has also raised the security baseline and users are strongly recommended to upgrade. Versions below the security baseline used to apply the Trusted-Library Manifest attribute to call between sandboxed code and higher-privileged code. The Trusted-Library value was a Boolean true or false. Security changes for the current security baseline (7u45) introduced a different Caller-Allowable-Codebase that indicates precisely where these LiveConnect calls can originate. For example, LiveConnect calls should not necessarily originate from 3rd party components of a web page or other DOM-based browser manipulations (pdf). Additional information about these can be located at “JAR File Manifest Attributes for Security.” The workaround for end-user dialogs is described on the 7u45 release notes, which explains removing the Trusted-Library attribute for LiveConnect calls in favor of Caller-Allowable-Codebase. This provides necessary protections (without warnings) for all users at or above the security baseline. Client installations automatically detect updates to the secure baseline and prompt users to upgrade. Warning dialogs above or below Both of these attributes should work together to support the various versions of client installations. We are aware of the issue that modifying the Manifest to use the newer Caller-Allowable-Codebase causes warnings for users below the security baseline and that not doing it displays a warning for users above. Manifest Attribute 7u45 7u40 and below Only Caller-Allowable-Codebase No dialog Displays prompt Only Trusted-Library Displays prompt No dialog Both Displays prompt (*) No dialog This will be fixed in a future release so that both attributes can co-exist. The current work-around would be to favor using Caller-Allowable-Codebase over the old Trusted-Library call. For users who need to stay below the security baseline System Administrators that schedule software deployments across managed computers may consider applying a Deployment Rule Set as described in Option 1 of “What to do if your applet is blocked or warns of mixed code.” System Administrators may also sign up for email notifications of Critical Patch Updates.

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• The problems with Avoiding Smurf Naming classes with namespaces

  - by Daniel Koverman

  I pulled the term smurf naming from here (number 21). To save anyone not familiar the trouble, Smurf naming is the act of prefixing a bunch of related classes, variables, etc with a common prefix so you end up with "a SmurfAccountView passes a SmurfAccountDTO to the SmurfAccountController", etc. The solution I've generally heard to this is to make a smurf namespace and drop the smurf prefixes. This has generally served me well, but I'm running into two problems. I'm working with a library with a Configuration class. It could have been called WartmongerConfiguration but it's in the Wartmonger namespace, so it's just called Configuration. I likewise have a Configuration class which could be called SmurfConfiguration, but it is in the Smurf namespace so that would be redundant. There are places in my code where Smurf.Configuration appears alongside Wartmonger.Configuration and typing out fully qualified names is clunky and makes the code less readable. It would be nicer to deal with a SmurfConfiguration and (if it was my code and not a library) WartmongerConfiguration. I have a class called Service in my Smurf namespace which could have been called SmurfService. Service is a facade on top of a complex Smurf library which runs Smurf jobs. SmurfService seems like a better name because Service without the Smurf prefix is so incredibly generic. I can accept that SmurfService was already a generic, useless name and taking away smurf merely made this more apparent. But it could have been named Runner, Launcher, etc and it would still "feel better" to me as SmurfLauncher because I don't know what a Launcher does, but I know what a SmurfLauncher does. You could argue that what a Smurf.Launcher does should be just as apparent as a Smurf.SmurfLauncher, but I could see `Smurf.Launcher being some kind of class related to setup rather than a class that launches smurfs. If there is an open and shut way to deal with either of these that would be great. If not, what are some common practices to mitigate their annoyance?

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• How do I properly use String literals for loading content?

  - by Dave Voyles

  I've been using verbatim string literals for some time now, and never quite thought about using a regular string literal until I started to come across them in Microsoft provided XNA samples. With that said, I'm trying to implement a new AudioManager class from the Net Rumble sample. I have two (2) issues here: Question 1: In my code for my GameplayScreen screen I have a folder location written as the following, and it works fine: menuButton = content.Load<SoundEffect>(@"sfx/menuButton"); menuClose = content.Load<SoundEffect>(@"sfx/menuClose"); If you notice, you'll see that I'm using a verbatim string, with a forward slash "/". In the AudioManager class, they use a regular string literal, but with two backslashes "\". I understand that one is used as an escape, but why are they BACK instead of FORWARD? (See below) soundList[soundName] = game.Content.Load<SoundEffect>("audio\\wav\\"+ soundName); Question 2: I seem to be doing everything correctly in my AudioManager class, but I'm not sure of what this line means: audioFileList = audioFolder.GetFiles("*.xnb"); I suppose that the *xnb means look for everything BUT files that end in *xnb? I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong with my file locations, as the sound effects are not playing. My code is not much different from what I've linked to above. private AudioManager(Game game, DirectoryInfo audioDirectory) : base(game) { try { audioFolder = audioDirectory; audioFileList = audioFolder.GetFiles("*.mp3"); soundList = new Dictionary<string, SoundEffect>(); for (int i = 0; i < audioFileList.Length; i++) { string soundName = Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(audioFileList[i].Name); soundList[soundName] = game.Content.Load<SoundEffect>(@"sfx\" + soundName); soundList[soundName].Name = soundName; } // Plays this track while the GameplayScreen is active soundtrack = game.Content.Load<Song>("boomer"); } catch (NoAudioHardwareException) { // silently fall back to silence } }

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• Releasing an open source project without getting embarrassed

  - by Hopeful

  I've been working by myself on a fairly large open source project for quite a while and it's nearing the point where I'd like to release it. However, I'm self-taught and I don't really know anyone who could adequately review my project. A few years ago, I had released a small bit of code which pretty much got ripped apart (in a critical sense) on the forum where I released it. Even though the code worked, the criticism was accurate but brutal. It prompted me to begin searching for best practices for everything and in the end I feel that it made me a much better developer. I've gone over everything in my project so many times trying to make it perfect that I've lost count. I believe in my project and think it has the potential to help a lot of people and I feel like I've done some cool things in interesting ways with it. Still, because I'm self-taught, I can't help but wonder what gaps exist in my self-education. The way my code was ripped apart last time isn't something I'd like to repeat. I think my two biggest fears with releasing my project that I've poured countless hours into are being absolutely embarrassed because I missed some patently obvious things because of my self-education or, worse, releasing it to the sound of crickets. Is there anyone who has been in a similar situation? I'm not afraid of constructive criticism, so long as it is constructive and not just a rant on how I screwed up. I know there is a code review site on StackExchange, but it's not really set up for large projects and I didn't feel like the community there is large enough yet to get good feedback if I were to post parts of my project piecemeal (I tried with one file). What can I do to give my project at least some measure of success without getting embarrassed or devestated in the process?

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• Flame Experiments Aboard the ISS Yield Surprising Results

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Recent flame-based experiments aboard the International Space Station yielded results scientists simply thought couldn’t happen–combustion in microgravity is a curious thing. Smithsonian magazine reports on the findings: Here on Earth, when a flame burns, it heats the surrounding atmosphere, causing the air to expand and become less dense. The pull of gravity draws colder, denser air down to the base of the flame, displacing the hot air, which rises. This convection process feeds fresh oxygen to the fire, which burns until it runs out of fuel. The upward flow of air is what gives a flame its teardrop shape and causes it to flicker. But odd things happen in space, where gravity loses its grip on solids, liquids and gases. Without gravity, hot air expands but doesn’t move upward. The flame persists because of the diffusion of oxygen, with random oxygen molecules drifting into the fire. Absent the upward flow of hot air, fires in microgravity are dome-shaped or spherical—and sluggish, thanks to meager oxygen flow. “If you ignite a piece of paper in microgravity, the fire will just slowly creep along from one end to the other,” says Dietrich. “Astronauts are all very excited to do our experiments because space fires really do look quite alien.” Hit up the link below for the full article including how NASA is applying the findings. Why Does 64-Bit Windows Need a Separate “Program Files (x86)” Folder? Why Your Android Phone Isn’t Getting Operating System Updates and What You Can Do About It How To Delete, Move, or Rename Locked Files in Windows

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• Demonstrate bad code to client?

  - by jtiger

  I have a new client that has asked me to do a redesign of their website, an ASP.NET Webforms application that was developed by another consultant. It seemed straight-forward (it never is) but I took a look at the code to make sure I knew what I was in for. This application was not written well. At all. It is extremely vulnerable to SQL Injection attacks, business logic is spread throughout the entire application, a lot of duplication, and dead end code that does nothing. On top of that, it keeps throwing exceptions that are being smothered, so it all appears to be running smoothly. My job is to simply update the html and css, but much of the html is being generated in business logic and would be a nightmare for me to sort everything out. My estimates on the redesign were longer than the client was aiming for, and they are asking why so long. How can I explain to my client just how bad this code is? In their mind, the application is running great and the redesign should be a quick one-off. It's my word against the previous consultant, so how can I actually give simple, concrete examples that a non-technical client would understand?

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• Designing a Database Application with OOP

  - by Tim C

  I often develop SQL database applications using Linq, and my methodology is to build model classes to represent each table, and each table that needs inserting or updating gets a Save() method (which either does an InsertOnSubmit() or SubmitChanges(), depending on the state of the object). Often, when I need to represent a collection of records, I'll create a class that inherits from a List-like object of the atomic class. ex. public class CustomerCollection : CoreCollection<Customer> { } Recently, I was working on an application where end-users were experiencing slowness, where each of the objects needed to be saved to the database if they met a certain criteria. My Save() method was slow, presumably because I was making all kinds of round-trips to the server, and calling DataContext.SubmitChanges() after each atomic save. So, the code might have looked something like this foreach(Customer c in customerCollection) { if(c.ShouldSave()) { c.Save(); } } I worked through multiple strategies to optimize, but ultimately settled on passing a big string of data to a SQL stored procedure, where the string has all the data that represents the records I was working with - it might look something like this: CustomerID:34567;CurrentAddress:23 3rd St;CustomerID:23456;CurrentAddress:123 4th St So, SQL server parses the string, performs the logic to determine appropriateness of save, and then Inserts, Updates, or Ignores. With C#/Linq doing this work, it saved 5-10 records / s. When SQL does it, I get 100 records / s, so there is no denying the Stored Proc is more efficient; however, I hate the solution because it doesn't seem nearly as clean or safe. My real concern is that I don't have any better solutions that hold a candle to the performance of the stored proc solution. Am I doing something obviously wrong in how I'm thinking about designing database applications? Are there better ways of designing database applications?

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• Package Manager Console For More Than Managing Packages

  - by Steve Michelotti

  Like most developers, I prefer to not have to pick up the mouse if I don’t have to. I use the Executor launcher for almost everything so it’s extremely rare for me to ever click the “Start” button in Windows. I also use shortcuts keys when I can so I don’t have to pick up the mouse. By now most people know that the Package Manager Console that comes with NuGet is PowerShell embedded inside of Visual Studio. It is based on its PowerConsole predecessor which was the first (that I’m aware of) to embed PowerShell inside of Visual Studio and give access to the Visual Studio automation DTE object. It does this through an inherent $dte variable that is automatically available and ready for use. This variable is also available inside of the NuGet Package Manager console. Adding a new class file to a Visual Studio project is one of those mundane tasks that should be easier. First I have to pick up the mouse. Then I have to right-click where I want it file to go and select “Add –> New Item…” or “Add –> Class…”   If you know the Ctrl+Shift+A shortcut, then you can avoid the mouse for adding a new item but you have to manually assign a shortcut for adding a new class. At this point it pops up a dialog just so I can enter the name of the class I want. Since this is one of the most common tasks developers do, I figure there has to be an easier way and a way that avoids picking up the mouse and popping up dialogs. This is where your embedded PowerShell prompt in Visual Studio comes in. The first thing you should do is to assign a keyboard shortcut so that you can get a PowerShell prompt (i.e., the Package Manager console) quickly without ever picking up the mouse. I assign “Ctrl+P, Ctrl+M” because “P + M” stands for “Package Manager” so it is easy to remember:   At this point I can type this command to add a new class: PM> $dte.ItemOperations.AddNewItem("Code\Class", "Foo.cs") which will result in the class being added: At this point I’ve satisfied my original goal of not having to pick up a mouse and not having the “Add New Item” dialog pop up. However, having to remember that $dte method call is not very user-friendly at all. The best thing to do is to make this a re-usable function that always loads when Visual Studio starts up. There is a $profile variable that you can use to figure out where that location is for your machine: PM> $profile C:\Users\steve.michelotti\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\NuGet_profile.ps1 If the NuGet_profile.ps1 file does not already exist, you can just create it yourself and place it in the directory. Now you can put a function inside like this: 1: function addClass($className) 2: { 3: if ($className.EndsWith(".cs") -eq $false) { 4: $className = $className + ".cs" 5: } 6: 7: $dte.ItemOperations.AddNewItem("Code\Class", $className) 8: } Since it’s in the NuGet_profile.ps1 file, this function will automatically always be available for me after starting Visual Studio. Now I can simply do this: PM> addClass Foo At this point, we have a *very* nice developer experience. All I did to add a new class was: “Ctrl-P, Ctrl-M”, then “addClass Foo”. No mouse, no pop up dialogs, no complex commands to remember. In fact, PowerShell gives you auto-completion as well. If I type “addc” followed by [TAB], then intellisense pops up: You can see my custom function appear in intellisense above. Now I can type the next letter “c” and [TAB] to auto-complete the command. And if that’s still too many key strokes for you, then you can create your own PowerShell custom alias for your function like this: PM> Set-Alias addc addClass PM> addc Foo While all this is very useful, I did run into some issues which prompted me to make even further customization. This command will add the new class file to the current active directory. Depending on your context, this may not be what you want. For example, by convention all view model objects go in the “Models” folder in an MVC project. So if the current document is in the Controllers folder, it will add your class to that folder which is not what you want. You want it to always add it to the “Models” folder if you are adding a new model in an MVC project. For this situation, I added a new function called “addModel” which looks like this: 1: function addModel($className) 2: { 3: if ($className.EndsWith(".cs") -eq $false) { 4: $className = $className + ".cs" 5: } 6: 7: $modelsDir = $dte.ActiveSolutionProjects[0].UniqueName.Replace(".csproj", "") + "\Models" 8: $dte.Windows.Item([EnvDTE.Constants]::vsWindowKindSolutionExplorer).Activate() 9: $dte.ActiveWindow.Object.GetItem($modelsDir).Select([EnvDTE.vsUISelectionType]::vsUISelectionTypeSelect) 10: $dte.ItemOperations.AddNewItem("Code\Class", $className) 11: } First I figure out the path to the Models directory on line #7. Then I activate the Solution Explorer window on line #8. Then I make sure the Models directory is selected so that my context is correct when I add the new class and it will be added to the Models directory as desired. These are just a couple of examples for things you can do with the PowerShell prompt that you have available in the Package Manager console. As developers we spend so much time in Visual Studio, why would you not customize it so that you can work in whatever way you want to work?! The next time you’re not happy about the way Visual Studio makes you do a particular task – automate it! The sky is the limit.

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• EPM 11.1.2.2 Architecture: Essbase

  - by Marc Schumacher

  Since a lot of components exist to access or administer Essbase, there are also a couple of client tools available. End users typically use the Excel Add-In or SmartView nowadays. While the Excel Add-In talks to the Essbase server directly using various ports, SmartView connects to Essbase through Provider Services using HTTP protocol. The ability to communicate using a single port is one of the major advantages from SmartView over Excel Add-In. If you consider using Excel Add-In going forward, please make sure you are aware of the Statement of Direction for this component. The Administration Services Console, Integration Services Console and Essbase Studio are clients, which are mainly used by Essbase administrators or application designers. While Integration Services and Essbase Studio are used to setup Essbase applications by loading metadata or simply for data loads, Administration Services are utilized for all kind of Essbase administration. All clients are using only one or two ports to talk to their server counterparts, which makes them work through firewalls easily. Although clients for Provider Services (SmartView) and Administration Services (Administration Services Console) are only using a single port to communicate to their backend services, the backend services itself need the Essbase configured port range to talk to the Essbase server. Any communication to repository databases is done using JDBC connections. Essbase Studio and Integration Services are using different technologies to talk to the Essbase server, Integration Services uses CAPI, Essbase Studio uses JAPI. However, both are using the configured port range on the Essbase server to talk to Essbase. Connections to data sources are either based on ODBC (Integration Service, Essbase) or JDBC (Essbase Studio). As for all other components discussed previously, when setting up firewall rules, be aware of the fact that all services may need to talk to the external authentication sources, this is not only needed for Shared Services.

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• Important additions to the Silverlight MaskedTextBox

  RadMaskedTextBox is one of the major controls in the Telerik Silverlight suite. It enables you to filter the user input and makes the work with data much more easier for the end-user. That is why in the past quarter (Q1) we put a great effort and get all the scenarios and users reports that we had so far and made this control as stable as possible. Now post Q1 we added some small, but important new features to the control. Here they are: Option to get the changed value when the focus of the control is lost. Before this change each user stroke causes the ValueChanged and ValueChanging events to be raised. Now you have to option to get these events on lost focus. This also gives you the option to enable the Regular expression validation of the new value on ValueChanging event. So if you want a complex ...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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• Sponsor the Hottest .NET Community Event in Germany: dotnet Cologne 2011

  - by WeigeltRo

  The “dotnet Cologne” conference organized by the NET usergroups Bonn and Cologne quickly has become the .NET community event in Germany. So when we opened the registration for dotnet Cologne 2011 on Monday, we expected some interest. But we didn’t expect the 200 “early bird” seats to be gone in less than three hours! And the registrations at normal price keep coming in, so it looks like this event will sell out even earlier than last year. In December I wrote about sponsorship opportunities at the dotnet Cologne 2011 – and why it’s a good idea to be a sponsor at this particular conference. If you are interested in becoming a sponsor: We still offer a wide variety of sponsorship packages in different sizes. At our new, larger, event location, we still have space for exhibition booths. Last year’s exhibitors were very happy and had many interesting conversations with the attendees. And this year we planned for longer breaks between sessions, which means event more time for presenting your products. And yes, German developers understand English demos. But maybe a booth is a bit too much for you. With the Bronze package, you can make sure the attendees receive promotional material of your company in their bags – for a fraction of what you’d pay at a commercial conference. Or you could sponsor a couple of licenses of your product for the raffle at the end of the day. If you want to learn more, just send an email to Roland.Weigelt at dotnet-koelnbonn.de and I’ll send you our sponsor information.

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• 'Binary XML' for game data?

  - by bluescrn

  I'm working on a level editing tool that saves its data as XML. This is ideal during development, as it's painless to make small changes to the data format, and it works nicely with tree-like data. The downside, though, is that the XML files are rather bloated, mostly due to duplication of tag and attribute names. Also due to numeric data taking significantly more space than using native datatypes. A small level could easily end up as 1Mb+. I want to get these sizes down significantly, especially if the system is to be used for a game on the iPhone or other devices with relatively limited memory. The optimal solution, for memory and performance, would be to convert the XML to a binary level format. But I don't want to do this. I want to keep the format fairly flexible. XML makes it very easy to add new attributes to objects, and give them a default value if an old version of the data is loaded. So I want to keep with the hierarchy of nodes, with attributes as name-value pairs. But I need to store this in a more compact format - to remove the massive duplication of tag/attribute names. Maybe also to give attributes native types, so, for example floating-point data is stored as 4 bytes per float, not as a text string. Google/Wikipedia reveal that 'binary XML' is hardly a new problem - it's been solved a number of times already. Has anyone here got experience with any of the existing systems/standards? - are any ideal for games use - with a free, lightweight and cross-platform parser/loader library (C/C++) available? Or should I reinvent this wheel myself? Or am I better off forgetting the ideal, and just compressing my raw .xml data (it should pack well with zip-like compression), and just taking the memory/performance hit on-load?

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• SQL – Download NuoDB and Qualify for FREE Amazon Gift Cards

  - by Pinal Dave

  July has been a fantastic month and Team NuoDB has really appreciated the active participation of the SQLAuthority.com active reader base. Earlier we had launched two contests with NuoDB and both of them are very much appreciated by readers. There are constant demands of more contests and team NuoDB is very much excited to support more contests. Here are the details to constests ran earlier: What ACID stands in the Database? – Contest to Win 24 Amazon Gift Cards and Joes 2 Pros 2012 Kit What is the latest Version of NuoDB? – A Quick Contest to Get Amazon Gift Cards Based on the earlier successful contests, the kind folks at NuoDB decided that they will support one more round of the giveaways to SQLAuthority.com contests. However, please note that this month’s contest will end in next 48 hours. You have to take part before July 31st, 2013 11:59:00 PM PST. Here is the quick contest: You just have to go and download NuoDB. The first 10 people who will download the NuoDB will get Amzon USD 10 cards. Remaining everyone will be entered into a lucky draw of Amazon Gift cards of USD 50. Winners will be announced in next 24 hours. To eligible for this contest, please download NuoDB before July 31st, 2013 11:59:00 PM PST. Bonus Round: If you have entered in the contest above, you can also enter to win latest Beginning SSRS Joes 2 Pros book. You just have to leave a comment over here with the note about how many different platform NuoDB supports. Here are few of the blog post I wrote earlier on that subject: Part 1 – Install NuoDB in 90 Seconds Part 2 – Manage NuoDB Installation Part 3 – Explore NuoDB Database Part 4 – Migrate from SQL Server to NuoDB Part 5 - NuoDB and Third Party Explorer – SQuirreL SQL Client, SQL Workbench/J and DbVisualizer Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Download, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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• Render on other render targets starting from one already rendered on

  - by JTulip

  I have to perform a double pass convolution on a texture that is actually the color attachment of another render target, and store it in the color attachment of ANOTHER render target. This must be done multiple time, but using the same texture as starting point What I do now is (a bit abstracted, but what I have abstract is guaranteed to work singularly) renderOnRT(firstTarget); // This is working. for each other RT currRT{ glBindFramebuffer(GL_FRAMEBUFFER, currRT.frameBufferID); programX.use(); glActiveTexture(GL_TEXTURE0); glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, firstTarget.colorAttachmentID); programX.setUniform1i("colourTexture",0); glActiveTexture(GL_TEXTURE1); glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, firstTarget.depthAttachmentID); programX.setUniform1i("depthTexture",1); glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, quadBuffID); // quadBuffID is a VBO for a screen aligned quad. It is fine. programX.vertexAttribPointer(POSITION_ATTRIBUTE, 3, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE, 0, (void*)0); glDrawArrays(GL_QUADS,0,4); programY.use(); glActiveTexture(GL_TEXTURE0); glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, currRT.colorAttachmentID); // The second pass is done on the previous pass programY.setUniform1i("colourTexture",0); glActiveTexture(GL_TEXTURE1); glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, currRT.depthAttachmentID); programY.setUniform1i("depthTexture",1); glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, quadBuffID); programY.vertexAttribPointer(POSITION_ATTRIBUTE, 3, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE, 0, (void*)0); glDrawArrays(GL_QUADS, 0, 4); } The problem is that I end up with black textures and not the wanted result. The GLSL programs program(X,Y) works fine, already tested on single targets. Is there something stupid I am missing? Even an hint is much appreciated, thanks!

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• EM12c Release 4: Database as a Service Enhancements

  - by Adeesh Fulay

  Oracle Enterprise Manager 12.1.0.4 (or simply put EM12c R4) is the latest update to the product. As previous versions, this release provides tons of enhancements and bug fixes, attributing to improved stability and quality. One of the areas that is most exciting and has seen tremendous growth in the last few years is that of Database as a Service. EM12c R4 provides a significant update to Database as a Service. The key themes are: Comprehensive Database Service Catalog (includes single instance, RAC, and Data Guard) Additional Storage Options for Snap Clone (includes support for Database feature CloneDB) Improved Rapid Start Kits Extensible Metering and Chargeback Miscellaneous Enhancements 1. Comprehensive Database Service Catalog Before we get deep into implementation of a service catalog, lets first understand what it is and what benefits it provides. Per ITIL, a service catalog is an exhaustive list of IT services that an organization provides or offers to its employees or customers. Service catalogs have been widely popular in the space of cloud computing, primarily as the medium to provide standardized and pre-approved service definitions. There is already some good collateral out there that talks about Oracle database service catalogs. The two whitepapers i recommend reading are: Service Catalogs: Defining Standardized Database Service High Availability Best Practices for Database Consolidation: The Foundation for Database as a Service [Oracle MAA] EM12c comes with an out-of-the-box service catalog and self service portal since release 1. For the customers, it provides the following benefits: Present a collection of standardized database service definitions, Define standardized pools of hardware and software for provisioning, Role based access to cater to different class of users, Automated procedures to provision the predefined database definitions, Setup chargeback plans based on service tiers and database configuration sizes, etc Starting Release 4, the scope of services offered via the service catalog has been expanded to include databases with varying levels of availability - Single Instance (SI) or Real Application Clusters (RAC) databases with multiple data guard based standby databases. Some salient points of the data guard integration: Standby pools can now be defined across different datacenters or within the same datacenter as the primary (this helps in modelling the concept of near and far DR sites) The standby databases can be single instance, RAC, or RAC One Node databases Multiple standby databases can be provisioned, where the maximum limit is determined by the version of database software The standby databases can be in either mount or read only (requires active data guard option) mode All database versions 10g to 12c supported (as certified with EM 12c) All 3 protection modes can be used - Maximum availability, performance, security Log apply can be set to sync or async along with the required apply lag The different service levels or service tiers are popularly represented using metals - Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze, and so on. The Oracle MAA whitepaper (referenced above) calls out the various service tiers as defined by Oracle's best practices, but customers can choose any logical combinations from the table below:  Primary  Standby [1 or more]  EM 12cR4  SI  -  SI  SI  RAC -  RAC SI  RAC RAC  RON -  RON RON where RON = RAC One Node is supported via custom post-scripts in the service template A sample service catalog would look like the image below. Here we have defined 4 service levels, which have been deployed across 2 data centers, and have 3 standardized sizes. Again, it is important to note that this is just an example to get the creative juices flowing. I imagine each customer would come up with their own catalog based on the application requirements, their RTO/RPO goals, and the product licenses they own. In the screenwatch titled 'Build Service Catalog using EM12c DBaaS', I walk through the complete steps required to setup this sample service catalog in EM12c. 2. Additional Storage Options for Snap Clone In my previous blog posts, i have described the snap clone feature in detail. Essentially, it provides a storage agnostic, self service, rapid, and space efficient approach to solving your data cloning problems. The net benefit is that you get incredible amounts of storage savings (on average 90%) all while cloning databases in a matter of minutes. Space and Time, two things enterprises would love to save on. This feature has been designed with the goal of providing data cloning capabilities while protecting your existing investments in server, storage, and software. With this in mind, we have pursued with the dual solution approach of Hardware and Software. In the hardware approach, we connect directly to your storage appliances and perform all low level actions required to rapidly clone your databases. While in the software approach, we use an intermediate software layer to talk to any storage vendor or any storage configuration to perform the same low level actions. Thus delivering the benefits of database thin cloning, without requiring you to drastically changing the infrastructure or IT's operating style. In release 4, we expand the scope of options supported by snap clone with the addition of database CloneDB. While CloneDB is not a new feature, it was first introduced in 11.2.0.2 patchset, it has over the years become more stable and mature. CloneDB leverages a combination of Direct NFS (or dNFS) feature of the database, RMAN image copies, sparse files, and copy-on-write technology to create thin clones of databases from existing backups in a matter of minutes. It essentially has all the traits that we want to present to our customers via the snap clone feature. For more information on cloneDB, i highly recommend reading the following sources: Blog by Tim Hall: Direct NFS (DNFS) CloneDB in Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Oracle OpenWorld Presentation by Cern: Efficient Database Cloning using Direct NFS and CloneDB The advantages of the new CloneDB integration with EM12c Snap Clone are: Space and time savings Ease of setup - no additional software is required other than the Oracle database binary Works on all platforms Reduce the dependence on storage administrators Cloning process fully orchestrated by EM12c, and delivered to developers/DBAs/QA Testers via the self service portal Uses dNFS to delivers better performance, availability, and scalability over kernel NFS Complete lifecycle of the clones managed by EM12c - performance, configuration, etc 3. Improved Rapid Start Kits DBaaS deployments tend to be complex and its setup requires a series of steps. These steps are typically performed across different users and different UIs. The Rapid Start Kit provides a single command solution to setup Database as a Service (DBaaS) and Pluggable Database as a Service (PDBaaS). One command creates all the Cloud artifacts like Roles, Administrators, Credentials, Database Profiles, PaaS Infrastructure Zone, Database Pools and Service Templates. Once the Rapid Start Kit has been successfully executed, requests can be made to provision databases and PDBs from the self service portal. Rapid start kit can create complex topologies involving multiple zones, pools and service templates. It also supports standby databases and use of RMAN image backups. The Rapid Start Kit in reality is a simple emcli script which takes a bunch of xml files as input and executes the complete automation in a matter of seconds. On a full rack Exadata, it took only 40 seconds to setup PDBaaS end-to-end. This kit works for both Oracle's engineered systems like Exadata, SuperCluster, etc and also on commodity hardware. One can draw parallel to the Exadata One Command script, which again takes a bunch of inputs from the administrators and then runs a simple script that configures everything from network to provisioning the DB software. Steps to use the kit: The kit can be found under the SSA plug-in directory on the OMS: EM_BASE/oracle/MW/plugins/oracle.sysman.ssa.oms.plugin_12.1.0.8.0/dbaas/setup It can be run from this default location or from any server which has emcli client installed For most scenarios, you would use the script dbaas/setup/database_cloud_setup.py For Exadata, special integration is provided to reduce the number of inputs even further. The script to use for this scenario would be dbaas/setup/exadata_cloud_setup.py The database_cloud_setup.py script takes two inputs: Cloud boundary xml: This file defines the cloud topology in terms of the zones and pools along with host names, oracle home locations or container database names that would be used as infrastructure for provisioning database services. This file is optional in case of Exadata, as the boundary is well know via the Exadata system target available in EM. Input xml: This file captures inputs for users, roles, profiles, service templates, etc. Essentially, all inputs required to define the DB services and other settings of the self service portal. Once all the xml files have been prepared, invoke the script as follows for PDBaaS: emcli @database_cloud_setup.py -pdbaas -cloud_boundary=/tmp/my_boundary.xml -cloud_input=/tmp/pdb_inputs.xml          The script will prompt for passwords a few times for key users like sysman, cloud admin, SSA admin, etc. Once complete, you can simply log into EM as the self service user and request for databases from the portal. More information available in the Rapid Start Kit chapter in Cloud Administration Guide.  4. Extensible Metering and Chargeback  Last but not the least, Metering and Chargeback in release 4 has been made extensible in all possible regards. The new extensibility features allow customer, partners, system integrators, etc to : Extend chargeback to any target type managed in EM Promote any metric in EM as a chargeback entity Extend list of charge items via metric or configuration extensions Model abstract entities like no. of backup requests, job executions, support requests, etc  A slew of emcli verbs have also been added that allows administrators to create, edit, delete, import/export charge plans, and assign cost centers all via the command line. More information available in the Chargeback API chapter in Cloud Administration Guide. 5. Miscellaneous Enhancements There are other miscellaneous, yet important, enhancements that are worth a mention. These mostly have been asked by customers like you. These are: Custom naming of DB Services Self service users can provide custom names for DB SID, DB service, schemas, and tablespaces Every custom name is validated for uniqueness in EM 'Create like' of Service Templates Now creating variants of a service template is only a click away. This would be vital when you publish service templates to represent different database sizes or service levels. Profile viewer View the details of a profile like datafile, control files, snapshot ids, export/import files, etc prior to its selection in the service template Cleanup automation - for failed and successful requests Single emcli command to cleanup all remnant artifacts of a failed request Cleanup can be performed on a per request bases or by the entire pool As an extension, you can also delete successful requests Improved delete user workflow Allows administrators to reassign cloud resources to another user or delete all of them Support for multiple tablespaces for schema as a service In addition to multiple schemas, user can also specify multiple tablespaces per request I hope this was a good introduction to the new Database as a Service enhancements in EM12c R4. I encourage you to explore many of these new and existing features and give us feedback. Good luck! References: Cloud Management Page on OTN Cloud Administration Guide [Documentation] -- Adeesh Fulay (@adeeshf)

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• How to Reach German Developers: dotnet Cologne 2011

  - by WeigeltRo

  If you want to promote tools, technologies, libraries, trainings or anything else of interest to software developers, you want to reach the right audience. Not the 9-to-5 people, but those who have the knowledge and passion that make them important multipliers. A great way to reach these people are community conferences. They are not the kind of conference that the 9-to-5 folks are “sent to” by their company, but that the right people hear of via Twitter, Facebook, blogs or plain old word-of-mouth and choose to go to, often covering the costs for the day themselves (travel, entrance fee, hotel, taking the day off). If you want to reach German developers there is one conference that has emerged as the large .NET community conference in Germany, quickly growing beyond being just a local event: The dotnet Cologne, that will be held for the third time on May 6, 2011 and that I’m co-organizing (this interview gives you a good idea of the history). This year’s dotnet Cologne 2010 with its 300 attendees was a huge success. As in the year before, the conference was sold out weeks in advance, and feedback by attendees and sponsors was positive throughout. And the list of speakers and attendees sounded like a “who is who” of the German .NET community. Whether you‘d like to present a product, a service or your company: you will meet the right target audience at dotnet Cologne. We’re offering a broad variety of sponsorship opportunities, ranging from being a donor for the large raffle at the end of the day (software licenses, books, training vouchers, etc.) up to having a booth and/or giving a sponsored talk about your product (not necessarily in German, English is not a problem). Among the various sponsorship levels (bronze/silver/gold/platinum) there’s most likely a package that will suit your needs – and if not, we’re open for suggestions. We’re happy to announce that already at this point in time (with over five months to go) we have a steadily growing list of partners: Microsoft, Intel, IDesign, SubMain, Comma Soft AG, GFU Köln, and EC Software. If you want to become a sponsor for the dotnet Cologne 2011, drop me a line at Roland.Weigelt at dotnet-koelnbonn.de and I’ll send you our sponsor info.

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• How to Customize Fonts and Colors for Gnome Panels in Ubuntu Linux

  - by The Geek

  Earlier this week we showed you how to make the Gnome Panels totally transparent, but you really need some customized fonts and colors to make the effect work better. Here’s how to do it. This article is the first part of a multi-part series on how to customize the Ubuntu desktop, written by How-To Geek reader and ubergeek, Omar Hafiz. Changing the Gnome Colors the Easy Way You’ll first need to install Gnome Color Chooser which is available in the default repositories (the package name is gnome-color-chooser). Then go to System > Preferences > Gnome Color Chooser to launch the program. When you see all these tabs you immediately know that Gnome Color Chooser does not only change the font color of the panel, but also the color of the fonts all over Ubuntu, desktop icons, and many other things as well. Now switch to the panel tab, here you can control every thing about your panels. You can change font, font color, background and background color of the panels and start menus. Tick the “Normal” option and choose the color you want for the panel font. If you want you can change the hover color of the buttons on the panel by too. A little below the color option is the font options, this includes the font, font size, and the X and Y positioning of the font. The first two options are pretty straight forward, they change the typeface and the size. The X-Padding and Y-Padding may confuse you but they are interesting, they may give a nice look for your panels by increasing the space between items on your panel like this: X-Padding:   Y-Padding:   The bottom half of the window controls the look of your start menus which is the Applications, Places, and Systems menus. You can customize them just the way you did with the panel.   Alright, this was the easy way to change the font of your panels. Changing the Gnome Theme Colors the Command-Line Way The other hard (not so hard really) way will be changing the configuration files that tell your panel how it should look like. In your Home Folder, press Ctrl+H to show the hidden files, now find the file “.gtkrc-2.0”, open it and insert this line in it. If there are any other lines in the file leave them intact. include “/home/<username>/.gnome2/panel-fontrc” Don’t forget to replace the <user_name> with you user account name. When done close and save the file. Now navigate the folder “.gnome2” from your Home Folder and create a new file and name it “panel-fontrc”. Open the file you just created with a text editor and paste the following in it: style “my_color”{fg[NORMAL] = “#FF0000”}widget “*PanelWidget*” style “my_color”widget “*PanelApplet*” style “my_color” This text will make the font red. If you want other colors you’ll need to replace the Hex value/HTML Notation (in this case #FF0000) with the value of the color you want. To get the hex value you can use GIMP, Gcolor2 witch is available in the default repositories or you can right-click on your panel > Properties > Background tab then click to choose the color you want and copy the Hex value. Don’t change any other thing in the text. When done, save and close. Now press Alt+F2 and enter “killall gnome-panel” to force it to restart or you can log out and login again. Most of you will prefer the first way of changing the font and color for it’s ease of applying and because it gives you much more options but, some may not have the ability/will to download and install a new program on their machine or have reasons of their own for not to using it, that’s why we provided the two way. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How to Enable User-Specific Wireless Networks in Windows 7 How to Use Google Chrome as Your Default PDF Reader (the Easy Way) How To Remove People and Objects From Photographs In Photoshop Ask How-To Geek: How Can I Monitor My Bandwidth Usage? Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware The Splendiferous Array of Culinary Tools [Infographic] Add a Real-Time Earth Wallpaper App to Ubuntu with xplanetFX The Citroen GT – An Awesome Video Game Car Brought to Life [Video] Final Man vs. Machine Round of Jeopardy Unfolds; Watson Dominates Give Chromium-Based Browser Desktop Notifications a Native System Look in Ubuntu Chrome Time Track Is a Simple Task Time Tracker

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• XNA - Render texture to a rendertarget 2d via SpriteBatch error

  - by Jared B

  I got simple code that uses SpriteBatch to draw a texture onto a RenderTarget2D... private void drawScene(GameTime g) { GraphicsDevice.Clear(skyColor); GraphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(targetScene); drawSunAndMoon(); effect.Fog = true; GraphicsDevice.SetVertexBuffer(line); effect.MainEffect.CurrentTechnique.Passes[0].Apply(); GraphicsDevice.DrawPrimitives(PrimitiveType.TriangleStrip, 0, 2); GraphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(null); SceneTexture = targetScene; } private void drawPostProcessing(GameTime g) { effect.SceneTexture = SceneTexture; GraphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(targetBloom); spriteBatch.Begin(SpriteSortMode.Immediate, BlendState.Opaque, null, null, null); { if(Bloom) effect.BlurEffect.CurrentTechnique.Passes[0].Apply(); spriteBatch.Draw(targetScene, new Rectangle(0, 0, Window.ClientBounds.Width, Window.ClientBounds.Height), Color.White); } spriteBatch.End(); BloomTexture = targetBloom; GraphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(null); } Both methods are called from Draw(GameTime gameTime). First drawScene is called, then drawPostProcessing is called. The thing is, I can't run the code because "the render target must not be set on the device when it is used as a texture." at line spriteBatch.Draw(targetScene, new Rectangle(0, 0, Window.ClientBounds.Width, Window.ClientBounds.Height), Color.White); I already found the solution, which is to draw the actual renderTarget (targetScene) to the texture so it doesn't create a reference to the loaded rendertarget. However, to my knowledge, the only way of doing this is to write: GraphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(OutputTarget) SpriteBatch.Draw(InputTarget, ...) GraphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(null) Which encounters the same exact problem I'm having right now. So, the question I'm asking is: how would I render InputTarget to OutputTarget without reference issues?

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• How can we plan projects realistically while accounting for support issues?

  - by Thomas Clayson

  We're having a problem at work: we're trying to schedule work so that we can assess time scales and get deadline dates. The problem is that it's difficult to plan for a project without knowing everything that's going to happen. For instance, right now we've planned all our projects through the start of December, however in that time we will have various in house and external meetings, teleconferences and extra work. It's all well and good to say that a project will take three weeks, but if there is a week's worth of interruption in that time then the date of completion will be pushed back a week. The problem is 3 fold: When we schedule projects the time scales are taken literally. If we estimate three weeks, the deadline is set for three week's time, the client is told, and there is no room for extension. Interim work and such means that we lose productive time working on the project. Sometimes clients don't have the time that we need to take to do the work, so they'll sometimes come to us and say they need a project done by the end of the month even when we think that the work will take two months - not to mention we already have work to be doing. We have a Gantt chart which we are trying to fill in with all the projects we have and we fill in timesheets, but they're not compared to the Gantt chart at all. This makes it difficult to say "Well, we scheduled 3 weeks for this project, but we've lost a week here so the deadline has to move back a week." It's also not professional to keep missing deadlines we've communicated to the client. How do other people deal with this type of situation? How do you manage the planning of projects? How much "extra" time do you schedule into a project to account for non-project work that occurs during a project? How do you deal with support issues and bugs and stuff? Things you can't account for during planning? UPDATE Lots of good answers thank you.

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• Beginner Geek: How to Use Multiple Monitors to Be More Productive

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Many people swear by multiple monitors, whether they’re geeks or just people who need to be productive. Why use just one monitor when you can use two or more and see more at once? Additional monitors allow you to expand your desktop, getting more screen real estate for your open programs. Windows makes it very easy to set up additional monitors, and your computer probably has the necessary ports. Why Use Multiple Monitors? Multiple monitors give you more screen real estate. Hook up multiple monitors to a computer and you can move your mouse back and forth between them, dragging programs between monitors as if you had an extra-large desktop. People who swear by multiple monitors use them to display multiple things on-screen at a time. Rather than Alt+Tabbing and task switching to glance at another window, you can just look over with your eyes and then look back to the program you’re using. Some examples of use cases for multiple monitors include: Coders who want to view their code on one display with the other display reserved for documentation. They can just glance over at the documentation and look back at their primary workspace. Anyone who needs to view something while working. Viewing a web page while writing an email, viewing another document while writing an something, or working with two large spreadsheets and having both visible at once. People who need to keep an eye on information, whether it’s email or up-to-date statistics, while working. Gamers who want to see more of the game world, extending the game across multiple displays. Geeks who just want to watch a video on one screen while doing something else on the other screen. Hooking Up Multiple Monitors Hooking up an additional monitor to your computer should be very simple. Most new computers come with more than one port for a monitor — whether DVI, HDMI, the older VGA port, or a mix. Some computers may include splitter cables that allow you to connect multiple monitors to a single port. Most laptops also come with ports that allow you to hook up an external monitor. Plug a monitor into your laptop’s DVI or VGA port and Windows will allow you to use both your laptop’s integrated display and the external monitor at once. This all depends on the ports your computer has and how your monitor connects. If you have an old VGA monitor lying around and you have a modern laptop with only DVI or HDMI connectors, you may need an adapter that allows you to plug your monitor’s VGA cable into the new port. Be sure to take your computer’s ports into account before you get another monitor for it. Managing Multiple Monitors With Windows Windows makes using multiple monitors easy. Just plug the monitor into the appropriate port on your computer and Windows should automatically extend your desktop onto it. You can now just drag and drop windows between monitors. To control how this works, right-click your Windows desktop and select Screen resolution. Choose an option from the Multiple displays box. The Extend option extends your desktop onto an additional monitor, while the other options are mainly useful if you’re using an additional monitor for presentations — for example, you could mirror your laptop’s desktop onto a large monitor or blank your laptop’s screen while it’s connected to a larger display. Be sure to arrange your monitors properly so Windows understands how your monitors are physically positioned. Windows 8 allows you to extend your Windows taskbar across multiple monitors. You’ll find this option in the taskbar’s options window — right-click the taskbar and select Properties. You can also choose where you want Windows to display taskbar buttons for open programs — on any monitor’s taskbar or only on the taskbar on the associated monitor. Windows 7 doesn’t have these convenient features built-in — your second monitor won’t have a taskbar. To extend your taskbar onto an additional monitor, you’ll need a third-party utility like the free and open-source Dual Monitor Taskbar. If you just have a single monitor, you can also use the Aero Snap feature to quickly place multiple Windows applications side by side. On Windows 7 or 8, press Windows Key + Left or Windows Key + Right to make the current window take up the left or right half of your display. You could also drag any window’s title bar to the left or right edges of your screen and release the window. How useful this feature is depends on your monitor’s size and resolution. If you have a large, high-resolution monitor, it will allow you to see a lot. If you have a smaller laptop monitor with the seemingly standard 1366×768 resolution, you won’t be able to see much of each snapped window at once, so snapping windows may not be practical. Image Credit: Chance Reecher on Flickr, Camp Atterbury Joint Maneuver Training Center on Flickr, Xavier Caballe on Flickr     

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• Blank screen after Switch User or Resume

  - by matt wilkie

  About half the time when I switch users or resume from standby or resume the screen goes blank (black). If I work the cursor keys I can hear the system bell when it gets to the end of the user list. I can also successfully login, going from memory, but screen stays black. Sometimes closing and re-opening the lid will light up the screen again. Pressing the special Function key to enable/disable external monitor connection has no effect [Fn]-[F5],[Fn]-[F6]. If none of the previous work I need to put the computer into hibernation or full power off to restore screen function. If I watch closely when switching users I think I can see the screen initially start to light up and then quickly fade to black. The computer is an Acer Aspire 3500, model ZL6, running Ubuntu 10.10 installed 2 days ago. No proprietary drivers are in use. I'll provide a list of hardware details as soon as I can figure out how to generate that (didn't there used to be an entry for hardware details under the System menu?). Possibly related questions: No resume after Hibernate or Standby When I resume from suspension - the screen is blank Switch user fails to complete successfully For what it's worth, blank after resume also used to happen occasionally when the laptop was running XP-Home, but nowhere near as often, perhaps 6 or 8 times a year. UPDATE: I found System Administration System Testing and ran the Monitor test. It went very very dark, but the window elements could be discerned, and the whole screen flashed (from very very dark to black). On the third repeat of that same test the screen went to full blaupck and stayed there. Moving the mouse, via touchpad, or touch keys did not wake it up again. I had to close the lid and put the computer into hibernate, and press the power button to restore it. UPDATE2: output of lshw: http://pastebin.com/q7n8676r, lspci: http://pastebin.com/6ujzVK4r UPDATE3: sometimes I can restore the screen by flipping to console 1 with ctrl-alt-F1 and then back to graphical with ctrl-alt-F7.

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• Oracle Exadata X3 announcement at Oracle Openworld

  - by Javier Puerta

  Oracle Announces Oracle Exadata X3 Database In-Memory MachineOracle Press ReleaseFourth Generation Exadata X3 Systems are Ideal for High-End OLTP, Large Data Warehouses, and Database Clouds; Eighth-Rack Configuration Offers New Low-Cost Entry Point During his opening keynote address at Oracle OpenWorld, Oracle CEO, Larry Ellison announced the Oracle Exadata X3 Database In-Memory Machine - the latest generation of its Oracle Exadata Database Machines. The Oracle Exadata X3 Database In-Memory Machine is a key component of the Oracle Cloud. Oracle Exadata X3-2 Database In-Memory Machine and Oracle Exadata X3-8 Database In-Memory Machine can store up to hundreds of Terabytes of compressed user data in Flash and RAM memory, virtually eliminating the performance overhead of reads and writes to slow disk drives, making Exadata X3 systems the ideal database platforms for the varied and unpredictable workloads of cloud computing. In order to realize the highest performance at the lowest cost, the Oracle Exadata X3 Database In-Memory Machine implements a mass memory hierarchy that automatically moves all active data into Flash and RAM memory, while keeping less active data on low-cost disks. With a new Eighth-Rack configuration, the Oracle Exadata X3-2 Database In-Memory Machine delivers a cost-effective entry point for smaller workloads, testing, development and disaster recovery systems, and is a fully redundant system that can be used with mission critical applications. Detailed info at Oracle Exadata Database Machine

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• I can't upgrade to 12.10 Quantal Quetzal

  - by JamesTheAwesomeDude

  After hearing about some of the features in 12.10, I decided to upgrade my Ubuntu from 12.04 LTS to the newer 12.10. However, when I try to upgrade it, I start the update manager, like always, and I start the distro upgrade, just like I do every time there's a new version, but at the end of the "Setting new software channels" stage, it fails, saying: Could not calculate the upgrade An unresolvable problem occurred while calculating the upgrade: E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages. This can be caused by: Upgrading to a pre-release version of Ubuntu Running the current pre-release version of Ubuntu Unofficial software packages not provided by Ubuntu If none of this applies, then please report this bug using the command 'ubuntu-bug ubuntu-release-upgrader-core' in a terminal. What should I do? I understand that I have some sort of "broken" package on my system, but how do I identify and remove the problem? Note: At the start of the "Setting new software channels" stage, I was presented with this: Third party sources disabled Some third party entries in your sources.list were disabled. You can re-enable them after the upgrade with the 'software-properties' tool or your package manager.

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• Flash AS3 sidescrolling tiles optimization

  - by Galvanize

  I'm trying to make a sidescrolling game in Flash that will run on a low performance laptop. While studying the subject from Tonypa I saw that he builds a Bitmap by making copys of the BitmapData of each tile from the Tile Sheet and placing it on the bigger Bitmat with the size of the screen. But when I came to think on how to scroll my map I ran into some optimization doubts. I came up with two choices: Create a MovieClip, place a Bitmap instance for each tile that is shown on the screen + 1 row in it, then move them all. Then when the tile ran off the screen I would move it to end of the MovieClip and replace their BitmapData for the next row in my map. Use a Bitmap with copys of each tile in it (as shown in Tonypa's tutorial) but 1 extra row, move the whole Bitmap, and when it comes the time to replace rows, redraw the whole Bitmap and move it back to the origin position. The first idea is how a co-worker of mine suggested, the second one is my own, but none of us has enough technical knowledge to be sure on a technique that would be optimal in performance, can anyone help?

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• C#/XNA get hardware mouse position

  - by Sunder

  I'm using C# and trying to get hardware mouse position. First thing I tryed was simple XNA functionality that is simple to use Vector2 position = new Vector2(Mouse.GetState().X, Mouse.GetState().Y); After that i do the drawing of mouse as well, and comparing to windows hardware mouse, this new mouse with xna provided coordinates is "slacking off". By that i mean, that it is behind by few frames. For example if game is runing at 600 fps, of curse it will be responsive, but at 60 fps software mouse delay is no longer acceptable. Therefore I tried using what I thought was a hardware mouse, [DllImport("user32.dll")] [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)] public static extern bool GetCursorPos(out POINT lpPoint); but the result was exactly the same. I also tried geting Windows form cursor, and that was a dead end as well - worked, but with the same delay. Messing around with xna functionality: GraphicsDeviceManager.SynchronizeWithVerticalRetrace = true/false Game.IsFixedTimeStep = true/fale did change the delay time for somewhat obvious reasons, but the bottom line is that regardless it still was behind default Windows mouse. I'v seen in some games, that they provide option for hardware acelerated mouse, and in others(I think) it is already by default. Can anyone give some lead on how to achieve that.

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