Search Results

Search found 9421 results on 377 pages for 'scikit learn'.

Page 97/377 | < Previous Page | 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104  | Next Page >

  • John Hitchcock of Pace Describes the Oracle Agile PLM Customer Experience

    John Hitchcock, Senior Manager of Configuration Management at Pace (formerly 2Wire, Inc.), sat down for an interview during Oracle's Innovation Summit with Kerrie Foy, Manager of PLM Product Marketing at Oracle. Learn why his organization upgraded to the latest version of Agile and expanded the footprint to achieve impressive savings and productivity gains across the global, networked product value-chain.

    Read the article

  • John Hitchcock of Pace Describes the Oracle Agile PLM Customer Experience

    John Hitchcock, Senior Manager of Configuration Management at Pace (formerly 2Wire, Inc.), sat down for an interview during Oracle's Innovation Summit with Kerrie Foy, Manager of PLM Product Marketing at Oracle. Learn why his organization upgraded to the latest version of Agile and expanded the footprint to achieve impressive savings and productivity gains across the global, networked product value-chain.

    Read the article

  • At The ATM: The Challenge of Tiny Buttons [Video]

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    If you’ve ever mis-mashed the buttons on an electronic device because your fingers are just too big, you’ll appreciate the situation this cheerful but massive fingered fellow gets into. Courtesy of Rikke Asbjoern, created while interning at Cartoon Network, the video is sure to hit home with those of us that fumble keypads and buttons wherever we go. [via Neatorama] HTG Explains: What Is RSS and How Can I Benefit From Using It? HTG Explains: Why You Only Have to Wipe a Disk Once to Erase It HTG Explains: Learn How Websites Are Tracking You Online

    Read the article

  • 9/18 Live Webcast: Three Compelling Reasons to Upgrade to Oracle Database 11g - Still time to register

    - by jgelhaus
    If you or your organization is still working with Oracle Database 10g or an even older version, now is the time to upgrade. Oracle Database 11g offers a wide variety of advantages to enhance your operation. Join us 10 am PT / 1pm ET September 18th for this live Webcast and learn about what you’re missing: the business, operational, and technical benefits. With Oracle Database 11g, you can: Upgrade with zero downtime Improve application performance and database security Reduce the amount of storage required Save time and money Register today 

    Read the article

  • Final Series Webcast: Exalogic Enables Super Fast Oracle Apps - Nov 29, 18:00 GMT

    - by swalker
    Invite customers to learn how Exalogic provides high-speed performance for Oracle JD Edwards, E-Business Suite, and PeopleSoft Enterprise applications. The third and final webcast in this series "Oracle Exalogic for Oracle PeopleSoft Applications," November 29, 2011 at 10AM PT, will show customers how Exalogic can simplify their PeopleSoft architecture and help them achieve new levels of performance, scalability, and reliability. Share this evite.

    Read the article

  • Apprentice Boot Camp in South Africa (Part 1)

    - by Tim Koekkoek
    By Maximilian Michel (DE), Jorge Garnacho (ES), Daniel Maull (UK), Adam Griffiths (UK), Guillermo De Las Nieves (ES), Catriona McGill (UK), Ed Dunlop (UK) The Boot Camp in South Africa was an amazing experience for all of us. The minute we landed, we were made to feel at home from our host Patrick Fitzgerald. The whole family who run the Guest House were also very friendly and always keen to help us. Since we had people from South Africa to show us all the amazing sights and their traditional ways to live their lives, the two weeks were very enjoyable for all of us and we came much closer together as a group. You can read this in the following parts of this report. Enjoy! The first group of Apprentices in Oracle (from left to right): Maximilian Michel (DE), Jorge Garnacho (ES), Daniel Maull (UK), Adam Griffiths (UK), Guillermo De Las Nieves (ES), Catriona McGill (UK), Ed Dunlop (UK) The Training Well, it’s time to talk about the main purpose of our trip to South Africa: the training. Two weeks, two courses. Servers and Storage. Two weeks to learn as much as possible and get the certificate. First week: Eben Pretorius with Servers Boot Camp. Learning about: • Machines: T1000, T2000, T3, T4, M series; • How to connect to the machines: serial and network connections; • Levels of software: ALOM, ILOM, OBP and of course the operating system, Solaris Combined with the practical part (screwdriver in one hand, and antistatic wristband on the other) makes quite a lot of stuff! But fortunately, Eben was able to tell us about everything without making our brains explode. For the second week: Storage Boot Camp with Deon Van Vuuren. Taking a look at the content: • Storage machines; • Connectors and protocols: SCSi, SAS, SATA Fiber Channel. Again, huge amounts of information, but Deon definitely did a great job and helped us learn it all. At the end, there was just one question left. Were we able to pass the exam and get the certificate? Well, what can we say? Just take a closer look at the picture above and make your conclusions! Our lovely Oracle office in Woodmead (near Johannesburg) We are all very proud to receive certification in “Server and Storage Support Fundamentals” together with our trainer Deon Van Vuuren. In summary, in case that you don't remember any of the above, the allies for a field engineer are: • System Handbook • EIS-DVD • A proper toolkit With these tools by our side, we’ll be unbeatable!  In the next article later this week, you can find part 2 of our experiences!

    Read the article

  • New JavaMagazine issue (March/April) is here

    - by alexismp
    The latest edition of the JavaMagazine, Oracle's bi-monthly publication, is out with the now traditional set of wide-ranging Java topics including some Java EE/GlassFish articles. You'll learn that there's a new book on Java EE 6 - Cookbook for securing, tuning, and extending enterprise applications, have the opportunity to read Adam Bien's latest piece - Who needs AOP? as well as Julien Ponge's part 2 of Clustering and HA Made Simple with GlassFish. The JavaMagazine is a free publication. Subscriptions here.

    Read the article

  • JavaOne 2012 - Java Generics

    - by Sharon Zakhour
    At JavaOne 2012, Venkat Subramaniam of Agile Developer, Inc, presented a conference session titled "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of Java Generics." Dr Subramaniam discussed the use of generics, what to watch out for when using generics, and best practices. To learn more about working with generics, see the Generics trail in the Java Tutorials. The trail was recently expanded and coverage added for the following topics: Generics, Inheritance, and Subtypes Guidelines for Wildcard Use Restrictions on Generics Wildcard Capture and Helper Methods Effects of Type Erasure and Bridge Methods

    Read the article

  • Download NPlot .NET charting library

    - by Editor
    NPlot is a .NET charting library for .NET. And, it is available as freeware. NPlot features an useful and flexible API. Also, NPlot includes controls for ASP.NET and Windows Forms, as well as a class for creating Bitmaps. Learn from a few examples. Download NPlot.

    Read the article

  • Diving into Scala with Cay Horstmann

    - by Janice J. Heiss
    A new interview with Java Champion Cay Horstmann, now up on otn/java, titled  "Diving into Scala: A Conversation with Java Champion Cay Horstmann," explores Horstmann's ideas about Scala as reflected in his much lauded new book,  Scala for the Impatient.  None other than Martin Odersky, the inventor of Scala, called it "a joy to read" and the "best introduction to Scala". Odersky was so enthused by the book that he asked Horstmann if the first section could be made available as a free download on the Typesafe Website, something Horstmann graciously assented to. Horstmann acknowledges that some aspects of Scala are very complex, but he encourages developers to simply stay away from those parts of the language. He points to several ways Java developers can benefit from Scala: "For example," he says, " you can write classes with less boilerplate, file and XML handling is more concise, and you can replace tedious loops over collections with more elegant constructs. Typically, programmers at this level report that they write about half the number of lines of code in Scala that they would in Java, and that's nothing to sneeze at. Another entry point can be if you want to use a Scala-based framework such as Akka or Play; you can use these with Java, but the Scala API is more enjoyable. " Horstmann observes that developers can do fine with Scala without grasping the theory behind it. He argues that most of us learn best through examples and not through trying to comprehend abstract theories. He also believes that Scala is the most attractive choice for developers who want to move beyond Java and C++.  When asked about other choices, he comments: "Clojure is pretty nice, but I found its Lisp syntax a bit off-putting, and it seems very focused on software transactional memory, which isn't all that useful to me. And it's not statically typed. I wanted to like Groovy, but it really bothers me that the semantics seems under-defined and in flux. And it's not statically typed. Yes, there is Groovy++, but that's in even sketchier shape. There are a couple of contenders such as Kotlin and Ceylon, but so far they aren't real. So, if you want to do work with a statically typed language on the JVM that exists today, Scala is simply the pragmatic choice. It's a good thing that it's such a nice choice." Learn more about Scala by going to the interview here.

    Read the article

  • How to Become a Valuable Web Developer

    If you are new to web development and want to 'break into' the field then PHP is the programming language you should learn. There are many approaches to learning how to be a web developer, however, I believe the following approach makes the most sense.

    Read the article

  • Google I/O 2012 - Up Close and Personal: NFC and Android Beam

    Google I/O 2012 - Up Close and Personal: NFC and Android Beam Martijn Coenen, Robert Hamilton A session covering the developer-oriented NFC features we've been adding to the Android platform. Learn how to use Android Beam to add magic sharing abilities to your application, and see what other new and exciting NFC features we're working on. For all I/O 2012 sessions, go to developers.google.com From: GoogleDevelopers Views: 251 4 ratings Time: 01:03:13 More in Science & Technology

    Read the article

  • Internships available in Oracle Netherlands - this summer

    - by jessica.ebbelaar
    I am Jannie Minnema, Director of Business Operations for Oracle in the Benelux. My career at Oracle started at Oracle Headquartes in San Francisco as a Project Manager, building Computer Based Training Products. After spending 3 years in Dubai, my husband and I moved to the USA as he wanted to study a MBA there. This move kick started my career as I was working in Silicon Valley during a time of great opportunity. After the USA, I fulfilled numerous roles at Oracle ranging from Project Management to Sales and Marketing. I currently work in the Netherlands were I am now Director of Business Operations for Oracle in the Benelux and a member of the Dutch Management Team. Business Operations advises the Benelux Management Team and focuses on topics such as Corporate Social Responsibility, Customer Satisfaction, Internal Communication, Internal training and effective usage of Sales Tools and Systems. We are currently also working on how best to introduce a “New way of Working”. The move to our new office building in 2011 aides in creating the right environment for this. Our goal is to continually improve the organisation. I enjoy working for Oracle because there is never a dull moment, and I am continuously challenged to improve. The environment that I work in changes constantly. Look at all the recent acquisitions; over 60 in the past 3 years! If you, as an Oracle employee, see something that can be done better, like a new service or tool, then combine it with some enthusiasm, motivate it further and the (Oracle) world changes! Internships This summer we have a number of Internships available, coordinated by the Business Operations team. We very much look forward to welcoming Students in our Dutch office. We look at it as an opportunity for both Oracle and the Interns to learn from each other. It will definitely result in both parties improving, growing and achieving results! We offer Internships related to Sales, Marketing and New Technology. You can find the assignments here. During the Internship you will experience what is like to work for an international and dynamic company, where we work and play hard. Our customers are major Dutch companies and our employees are professionals that compare working at Oracle with playing a Soccer World Cup final. We offer several Internships at the same time, so you will learn and share your experiences with a group of fellow students. If you have any questions related to this article feel free to contact [email protected].  You can find our job opportunities via http://campus.oracle.com

    Read the article

  • DOAG 2012 and Educause 2012

    - by Chris Kawalek
    Oracle understands the value of desktop virtualization and how customers have really embraced it as a top tier method to deliver access to applications and data. Just as supporting operating systems other than Windows in the enterprise desktop space started to become necessary perhaps 5-7 years ago, supporting desktop virtualization with VDI, application virtualization, thin clients, and tablet access is becoming necessary today in 2012. Any application strategy needs to have a secure mobile component, and a solution that gives you a holistic strategy across both mobile and fixed-asset (i.e., desktop PCs) devices is crucial to success. This means it's probably useful to learn about desktop virtualization, even if it's not in your typical area of responsibility. A good way to do that is at one of the many trade shows where we exhibit. Here are two examples:  DOAG 2012 Conference + Exhibition The DOAG Conference is fast approaching, starting November 20th in Nuremberg, Germany. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you might remember that we attended last year as well. This conference is fantastic for us because we get to speak directly to users of Oracle products. In many cases, those DBAs, IT managers, and other infrastructure folks are looking for ways to deal with the burgeoning BYOD model, as well as ways of streamlining their standard desktop and access technologies. We have a couple of sessions where you can learn a great deal about how Oracle can help with these points. Session Schedule (look under "Infrastruktur & Hardware") The two sessions focused on desktop virtualization are: Oracle VDI Best Practice unter Linux (Oracle VDI Best Practice Under Linux) Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Implementierungen und Praxiserfahrungen (Virtual Desktop Infrastructures Implementations and Best Practices) We will also have experts on hand at the booth to answer your questions on using desktop virtualization. If you're at the show, please stop by and say hello to our team there! Educause 2012  Another good example is Educause. We've gone the last few years to show off a slough of education oriented applications and capabilities in the Oracle product portfolio. And every year, we display those applications through Oracle desktop virtualization. This means the demonstration can easily be setup ahead of time and replicated out to however many "demo pods" that we have available. There's no need for our product teams to setup individual laptops for demos -- we can display a standardized Windows desktop virtual machine with their apps all ready to go on a whole bunch of devices like your standard trade show laptop, our Sun Ray Clients, and iPad. Educause 2012 just wrapped, so we're sorry we missed you this year. But there is always next year! Until then, here are a few pictures from this year's show: You can also watch this video to see how Catholic Education Australia uses Oracle Secure Global Desktop to help cope with the ever changing ways that people access their applications.  -Chris 

    Read the article

  • Virtual Developer Day: Oracle Fusion Development

    - by mseika
    Get up to date and learn everything you wanted to know about Oracle ADF & Fusion Development plus live Q&A chats with Oracle technical staff. Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) is the standards based, strategic framework for Oracle Fusion Applications and Oracle Fusion Middleware. Oracle ADF's integration with the Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle WebCenter and Oracle BI creates a complete productive development platform for your custom applications. Join us at this FREE virtual event and learn the latest in Fusion Development including: Is Oracle ADF development faster and simpler than Forms, Apex or .Net? Mobile Application Development with ADF Mobile Oracle ADF development with Eclipse Oracle WebCenter Portal and ADF Development Application Lifecycle Management with ADF Building Process Centric Applications with ADF and BPM Oracle Business Intelligence and ADF Integration Live Q&A chats with Oracle technical staff Developer lead, manager or architect – this event has something for everyone. Don't miss this opportunity December 11th, 2012 9:00 – 13:00 GMT 10:00 – 14:00 CET 12:00 – 16:00 AST 13:00 – 17:00 MSK 14:30 – 18:30 IST Register online now for this FREE event! Agenda 9:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. Opening 9:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. Keynote Oracle Fusion Development Track 1 Introduction to Fusion Development Track 2 What's New in Fusion Development Track 3 Fusion Development in the Enterprise Track 4 Hands On Lab - WebCenter Portal and ADF Lab w/ JDeveloper 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. Is Oracle ADF development faster and simpler than Forms, Apex or .Net? Mobile Application Development with ADF Mobile Oracle WebCenter Portal and ADF Development Lab materials can be found on event wiki here. Q&A about the lab is available throughout the event. 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Rich Web UI made simple – an ADF Faces Overview Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse - ADF Development Building Process Centric Applications with ADF and BPM 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. Next Generation Controller for JSF Application Lifecycle Management for ADF Oracle Business Intelligence and ADF Integration View Session Abstracts We look forward to welcoming you at this free event!

    Read the article

  • FileStream and FileTable in SQL Server 2012

    SQL Server 2012 enhanced the SQL Server 2008 FileStream data type by introducing FileTable, which lets an application integrate its storage and data management components to allow non-transactional access, and provide integrated SQL Server services. Arshad Ali explains how. Top 5 hard-earned lessons of a DBAIn part one, read about ‘The Case of the Missing Index’ and learn from the experience of The DBA Team. Read now.

    Read the article

  • John Hitchcock of Pace Describes the Oracle Agile PLM Customer Experience

    John Hitchcock, Senior Manager of Configuration Management at Pace (formerly 2Wire, Inc.), sat down for an interview during Oracle's Innovation Summit with Kerrie Foy, Manager of PLM Product Marketing at Oracle. Learn why his organization upgraded to the latest version of Agile and expanded the footprint to achieve impressive savings and productivity gains across the global, networked product value-chain.

    Read the article

  • John Hitchcock of Pace Describes the Oracle Agile PLM Customer Experience

    John Hitchcock, Senior Manager of Configuration Management at Pace (formerly 2Wire, Inc.), sat down for an interview during Oracle's Innovation Summit with Kerrie Foy, Manager of PLM Product Marketing at Oracle. Learn why his organization upgraded to the latest version of Agile and expanded the footprint to achieve impressive savings and productivity gains across the global, networked product value-chain.

    Read the article

  • Installing DotNetNuke using WebMatrix

    - by Chris Hammond
    Last week Microsoft released a new tool called WebMatrix, a tool for developing web applications and easily installing existing web applications. You can learn more about WebMatrix by visiting http://www.microsoft.com/web/webmatrix/ . What does this have to do with DotNetNuke ? Well WebMatrix makes installing DotNetNuke very easy! Even easier than before when just using the Web Platform Installer also from Microsoft. To be honest, using the Web Platform Installer alone unfortunately doesn’t work...(read more)

    Read the article

  • Oracle SOA Partner Community Forum Lisbon, Portugal &ndash; April 21st 2010

    - by Jürgen Kress
    We would like to invite you to attend our SOA Partner Community Forum that will be in held in Lisbon, April 21, 2010 The Oracle SOA Partner Community Forum is a wonderful opportunity to: Meet with Oracle SOA and BPM Product management Exchange thoughts and knowledge with SOA and BPM experts Learn from successful SOA implementation Network within the Oracle SOA Partner Community During this highly informative event you can learn about partner success stories, participate in an array of breakout sessions, exchange information with other partners and enjoy a vibrant panel discussion. Places are limited, so register today. Registration only takes a few minutes and it is free of charge. By registration you will confirm that you will attend to the event. Seminar is free. In the event that you cancel your registration after April 16th 2010 Oracle may request that you will pay late cancellation fee of € 150. Please visit our website for further information. Alternatively, if you require assistance or have any queries please contact Jürgen Kress. Agenda 10:00     Welcome & Introduction 10:15     SOA Cloud presentation 11:15     SOA Partner Sales Campaign 12:30     Lunch break 13:15     Partner Reference Case 14:15     BPMN 2.0 15:00     Cocktail reception   Location: Lagoas Park Hotel 2740-245, Porto Salvo, Oeiras For partners with BPM 11g opportunities we will offer an advanced workshop on Thursday April 22nd and Friday April 23rd hosted by Clemens Utschig-Utschig. If you are interested please contact Jürgen Kress.   Quotes from previous SOA Partner Community Forums "The SOA Partner Community Forum was a first-rate event that provided a balanced agenda of vendor-specific and vendor-neutral content pertaining to modern-day service-oriented computing technologies and practices. I enjoyed the opportunity to provide an objective voice on the topics I consider most important for today's IT practitioners to fully leverage the many patterns, principles, and service technology innovations that comprise the next-generation SOA platform." Thomas Erl, SOA Systems Inc., SOASchool.com “The Community is an excellent forum for Partners to hear about each others success stories on SOA, especially BPEL and ODI” Jørn F. Schurink, Competence Expert Oracle Technologies Logica “The Community is the best source for information around Oracle SOA a wonderful platform with many interesting contacts and discussions”. Torsten Winterberg, Opitz Consulting “The regular meetings of the SOA Partner Community are a perfectly organized platform for learning the latest in Oracle SOA tooling by extraordinary speakers and for vivid discussions with practitioners about SOA challenges and design solutions. This is the best opportunity to build and deepen a network with the brightest and most passionate protagonists in Oracle SOA world in EMEA.” Hajo Normann, HP Services Technorati Tags: soa partner community forum,soa,event

    Read the article

  • Webcast: John Fowler Reveals The Next Step In Data Center Consolidation – June 27 At 10 AM PT

    - by Roxana Babiciu
    Completely integrated solutions are just better. But don't take our word for it - encourage your customers and prospects to join this live webcast featuring Oracle EVP John Fowler to find out why. Participants will learn how consolidating their existing data center to this new generation of solutions will simplify architectures, jump start application deployment and improve system performance - with easy self-service and private cloud capabilities.

    Read the article

  • So, what&rsquo;s your blog URL?

    - by johndoucette
    Asked by many of my colleagues often enough, I decided to take the plunge and begin blogging. After many attempts to start and long discussions about what I should write about, I decided to give my “buddies” a series of lessons and tidbits to help them understand what it takes to manage a software development project in the real world. Stories of success and failure to keep hope alive. I am formally trained as a developer (BS/CS) and have scattered my code throughout the matrix since 1985 (officially working for the man). As I moved from job-to-job over my career, I have had good managers, bad ones, and ones who were – well, just sitting in the corner office. It wasn't until I began the transition and commitment to the role of project management that I began to take real software development management seriously. A boss once told me “put down the code. Start managing the people and process.” That was a scary time in my career. I loved solving really cool problems with a blank sheet of paper. It was an adrenaline rush to get an opportunity to start from scratch and write an application solution people would actually use and help them in their work/business. I felt that moving into “management” would remove me from the thrill and ownership I felt as a developer. It was a hard step to take, and one which I believe is hard for any developer. Well, I am here to help you through this transition. For those of you wanting to read my stories or learn about the tools and techniques I use on a daily basis, you too might just learn something you would have never thought of as an architect/developer. I am currently a Sr. Consultant at Magenic with the Boston branch office and primarily work with clients in the New England area. I am typically engaged as the lead project manager on our engagements, but also perform Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) assessments for development organizations as well as augment the Technical Evangelists for Microsoft and perform many Team Foundation Server (TFS) demos, installs and “get started” engagements. I have spoken at the New England Code Camp, our most recent CodeMastery event in Boston, and have written several whitepapers.   I am looking forward to helping you “Put down the code.” John Doucette

    Read the article

  • HTG Explains: What Is Juice Jacking and How Worried Should You Be?

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Your smartphone needs a recharge yet again and you’re miles from the charger at home; that public charging kiosk is looking pretty promising–just plug your phone in and get the sweet, sweet, energy you crave. What could possible go wrong, right? Thanks to common traits in cellphone hardware and software design, quite a few things–read on to learn more about juice jacking and how to avoid it.    

    Read the article

  • Cool Tools You Can Use: Validation Templates for PeopleSoft Contracts Processes

    - by Mark Rosenberg
    This is the first in a series of postings we’ll be making under the heading of Cool Tools You Can Use. Our PeopleSoft product management team identified the need for this series after reflecting on the many conversations we have each year with our PeopleSoft community members. During these conversations, we were discovering that customers and implementation partners were often not aware that solutions exist to the problems they were trying to address and that the solutions were readily available at no additional charge. Thus, the Cool Tools You Can Use series will describe the business challenge we’ve heard, the PeopleSoft solution to the challenge, and how you can learn more about the solution so that everyone can be sure to make full use of what PeopleSoft applications have to offer. The first cool tool we’ll look at is the Validation Template for PeopleSoft Contracts Process Requests, which was first released in December 2013 as part of PeopleSoft Contracts 9.2 Update Image 4. The business issue our customers highlighted to us is the need to tightly control but easily configure and manage the scope of data that any user can process when initiating a process. Control of each user’s span of impact is essential to reducing billing reconciliation issues, passing span of authority audits, and reducing (or even eliminating) the frequency of unexpected process results.  Setting Up the Validation Template for a PeopleSoft Contracts Process With the validation template, organizations can easily and quickly ensure the software restricts the scope of transactions a user can affect and gives organizations the confidence to know that business processes are being governed effectively. Additionally, this control of PeopleSoft Contracts process requests can be applied and easily maintained and adjusted from a web browser thereby enabling analysts to administer the rules without having to engage software developers to customize the software. During the field validation template setup, an analyst specifies the combinations of fields that must contain values when a user tries to setup a run control and initiate a PeopleSoft Contracts process from a process request page. For example, for the Process Limits component, an organization could require that users enter a valid combination of values for the business unit, contract, and contract type fields or a value in the contract administrator field. Until the user enters a valid combination of entries on the process request page, he cannot launch the process. With the validation template activated for process request pages, organizations can be confident that PeopleSoft Contracts users will not accidentally begin generating invoices or triggering other revenue management processes for transactions beyond their scope of authority. To learn more about the Validation Template, please review the Defining Validation Templates section of the PeopleSoft Contracts PeopleBooks. 

    Read the article

  • Experiences with learning Chinese

    - by Greg Low
    I've had a few friends asking me about learning Chinese and what I've found works and doesn't work. I was answering a question on a mailing list today and I thought I should post this info where it might be useful to many. The question that was initially asked was whether Rosetta Stone was useful but I've provided much more info on learning the language here. I’ve used Rosetta Stone with Chinese but it’s really hard to know whether to recommend it or not. Rosetta Stone works the same way in all languages. They show you photos and then let you both see and hear the target language and get you to work out what they’re talking about. The thinking is that that’s how children learn. However, at first, I found it very frustrating. I’d be staring at photos trying to work out what they were really trying to get at. Sometimes it’s far from obvious. I could not have survived without Google Translate open at the same time. The other weird thing is that the photos are from a mixture of countries. While that’s good in a way, it also means that they are endlessly showing pictures of something that would never happen in the target language and culture. For any language, constant interaction with a speaker of the target language is needed. Rosetta Stone has a “Studio” option. That’s the best part of the program. In my case, it lets me connect around twice a week to a live online class from Beijing. Classes usually have the teacher plus two to four students. You get some Studio access with the initial packages but need to purchase it for ongoing use. I find it very inexpensive. It seems to work out to about $70 (AUD/USD) for six months. That’s a real bargain. The other downside to Rosetta Stone is that they tend to teach very formal language, but as with other languages, that’s not how the locals speak. It might have been correct at one point but no-one actually says that. As an example, Rosetta Stone teach Gonggòng qìche (pronounced roughly like “gong gong chee chure” for bus. Most of my friends from areas like Taiwan would just say Gongche. Google Translate says Zongxiàn (pronounced somewhat like “dzong sheean”) instead. Mind you, the Rosetta Stone option isn't really as bad as "omnibus"; it's more like saying "public bus". If you say the option they provide, people would understand you. I also listen to ChinesePod in the car. They also have SpanishPod. Each podcast is about five minutes of spoken conversation. It is very good for providing current language. Another resource I use is local Meetup groups. Most cities have these and for a variety of languages. It’s way less structured (just standard conversation) but good for getting interaction. The obvious challenge for Asian languages is reading/writing. The input editors for Chinese that are part of Windows are excellent. Many of my Chinese friends speak fluently but cannot read or write. I was determined to learn to do both. For writing, I’m talking about on a computer, not with a pen. (Mind you, I can barely write English with a pen nowadays). When using Rosetta Stone, you can choose to have the Chinese words displayed in pinyin (Wo xihuan xuéxí zhongguó) or in Chinese characters (???????) or both. This year, I’ve been forcing myself to just use the Chinese characters. I use a pinyin input editor in Windows though, as it’s very fast.  (The character recognition input in the iPad is also amazing). Notice from the example that I provided above that the pronunciation of the pinyin isn’t that obvious to us at first either.  Since changing to only using characters, I find I can now read many more Chinese characters fluently. It’s a major challenge though. I can read about 300 now and yet you need around 2,500 to be able to read a newspaper fairly well. Tones are a major issue for some Asian languages. Mandarin has four tones (plus a neutral tone) and there is a major difference in meaning between two words that are spelled the same in pinyin but with different tones. For example, Ma (3rd tone?) is a horse, Ma (1st tone?) is like “mom”, and ma (neutral tone?) is a question mark and so on. Clearly you don’t want to mix these up. As in English, they also have words that do sound the same but mean different things in different contexts. What’s interesting is that even though we see two words that differ only by tone as very similar, to a native speaker, if you say the right words with the wrong tone, you might as well have said a completely different word. My wife’s dialect of Chinese has eight tones. It’s much worse. The reason I’m so keen to learn to read/write Chinese is that even though the different dialects are pronounced so differently that speakers of one dialect often cannot understand another dialect, the writing is generally the same. The only difference is that many years ago, the Chinese government created a simplified set of characters for some of the most commonly used ones. Older Chinese and most Cantonese speakers often struggle with the simplified characters. This is the simplified form of “three apples”: ????   This is the traditional form of the same words: ????  Note that two of the characters are the same but the middle two are quite different. For most languages, the best thing is to watch current movies in the target language but to watch them with the target language as subtitles, not your native language. You want to know what they actually said, not what it roughly means (which is what the English subtitle would give you). The difficulty with Asian languages like Chinese is that you have the added challenge of understanding the subtitles when they are written in the target language. I wish there were Mandarin Chinese movies with pinyin subtitles. For learning to read characters, I also recommend HanCard on the iPad. It is targeted at the HSK language proficiency levels. (I’m intending to take the first HSK exam as soon as I’m ready). Hope that info helps someone get started.  

    Read the article

< Previous Page | 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104  | Next Page >