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  • Are too many assertions code smell?

    - by Florents
    I've really fallen in love with unit testing and TDD - I am test infected. However, unit testing is used for public methods. Sometimes though I do have to test some assumptions-assertions in private methods too, because some of them are "dangerous" and refactoring can't help further. (I know, testing frameworks allo testing private methods). So, It became a habit of mine that (almost always) the first and the last line of a private method are both assertions. I guess this couldn't be bad (right ??). However, I've noticed that I also tend to use assertions in public methods too (as in the private) just "to be sure". Could this be "testing duplication" since the public method assumpotions are tested from the unit testng framework? Could someone think of too many assertions as a code smell?

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  • How would I balance a multiplayer competitive game

    - by Simon
    I'm looking at my first foray into developing a game, and would love to know whether you guys have any thoughts on game balancing on limited multiplayer games. The game I have in mind involves a neutral player that has to achieve a goal, with two supporting "deity" players who are one of 'good' and 'evil' - One of the deity players would try to help the player achieve their goal, while the other would try to thwart them. Any thoughts or pointers on how I can ensure the deities are balanced? If you want me to expand, I will, just didn't want to give away too much of the game play before I finish it.

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  • Which Programming Languages Support the Following Features?

    - by donalbain
    My personal programming background is mainly in Java, with a little bit of Ruby, a tiny bit of Scheme, and most recently, due to some iOS development, Objective-C. In my move from Java to Objective-C I've really come to love some features that Objective-C has that Java doesn't. These include support for both static and dynamic typing, functional programming, and closures, which I'm trying to leverage in my code more often. Unfortunately there are trade-offs, including lack of support for generics and (on iOS at least) no garbage collection. These contrasts have lead me to start a search for some of the programming languages that support the following features: Object Oriented Functional Programming Support Closures Generics Support for both Static and Dynamic Typing Module Management to avoid classpath/dll hell Garbage Collection Available Decent IDE Support Admittedly some of these features(IDE support, Module Management) may not be specific to the language itself, but obviously influence the ease of development in the language. Which languages fit these criteria?

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  • creating a pre-menu level select screen

    - by Ephiras
    Hi I am working on creating a tower Defence java applet game and have come to a road block about implementing a title screen that i can select the level and difficulty of the rest of the game. my title screen class is called Menu. from this menu class i need to pass in many different variables into my Main class. i have used different classes before and know how to run them and such. but if both classes extend applet and each has its individual graphics method how can i run things from Main even though it was created in Menu. what i essentially want to do is run the Menu class withits action listeners and graphics until a Difficulty button has been selected, run the main class (which 100% works without having to have the Menu class) and pretty much terminate Menu so that i cannot go back to it, do not see its buttons or graphics menus. can i run one applet annd when i choose a button close that one and launch the other one? IF you would like to download the full project you can find it here, i had to comment out all the code that wasn't working my Menu class import java.awt.*; import java.awt.event.*; import java.applet.*; public class Menu extends Applet implements ActionListener{ Button bEasy,bMed,bHard; Main m; public void init(){ bEasy= new Button("Easy"); bEasy.setBounds(140,200,100,50); add(bEasy); bMed = new Button("Medium");bMed.setBounds(280,200,100,50); add(bMed); bHard= new Button("Hard");bHard.setBounds(420,200,100,50); add(bHard); setLayout(null); } public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e){ Main m = new Main(20,10,3000,mapMed);//break; switch (e.getSource()){ case bEasy: Main m = new Main(6000,20,"levels/levelEasy.png");break;//enimies tower money world case bMed: Main m = new Main(4000,15,"levels/levelMed.png");break; case bHard: Main m = new Main(2000,10,"levels/levelEasy.png");break; default: break; } } public void paint(){ //m.draw(g) } } and here is my main class initialising code. import java.awt.*; import java.awt.event.*; import java.applet.*; import java.io.IOException; public class Main extends Applet implements Runnable, MouseListener, MouseMotionListener, ActionListener{ Button startButton, UpgRange, UpgDamage; //set up the buttons Color roadCol,startCol,finCol,selGrass,selRoad; //set up the colors Enemy e[][]; Tower t[]; Image towerpic,backpic,roadpic,levelPic; private Image i; private Graphics doubleG; //here is the world 0=grass 1=road 2=start 3=end int world[][],eStartX,eStartY; boolean drawMouse,gameEnd; static boolean start=false; static int gridLength=15; static int round=0; int Mx,My,timer=1500; static int sqrSize=31; int towers=0,towerSelected=-10; static int castleHealth=2000; String levelPath; //choose the level Easy Med or Hard int maxEnemy[] = {5,7,12,20,30,15,50,30,40,60};//number of enimies per round int maxTowers=15;//maximum number of towers allowed static int money =2000,damPrice=600,ranPrice=350,towerPrice=700; //money = the intial ammount of money you start of with //damPrice is the price to increase the damage of a tower //ranPrice is the price to increase the range of a tower public void main(int cH,int mT,int mo,int dP,int rP,int tP,String path,int[] mE)//constructor 1 castleHealth=cH; maxTowers=mT; money=mo; damPrice=dP; ranPrice=rP; towerPrice=tP; String levelPath=path; maxEnemy = mE; buildLevel(); } public void main(int cH,int mT,String path)//basic constructor castleHealth=cH; maxTowers=mT; String levelPath=path; maxEnemy = mE; buildLevel(); } public void init(){ setSize(sqrSize*15+200,sqrSize*15);//set the size of the screen roadCol = new Color(255,216,0);//set the colors for the different objects startCol = new Color(0,38,255); finCol = new Color(255,0,0); selRoad = new Color(242,204,155);//selColor is the color of something when your mouse hovers over it selGrass = new Color(0,190,0); roadpic = getImage(getDocumentBase(),"images/road.jpg"); towerpic = getImage(getDocumentBase(),"images/tower.png"); backpic = getImage(getDocumentBase(),"images/grass.jpg"); levelPic = getImage(getDocumentBase(),"images/level.jpg"); e= new Enemy[maxEnemy.length][];//activates all of the enimies for (int r=0;r<e.length;r++) e[r] = new Enemy[maxEnemy[r]]; t= new Tower[maxTowers]; for (int i=0;i<t.length;i++) t[i]= new Tower();//activates all the towers for (int i=0;i<e.length; i++)//sets all of the enimies starting co ordinates for (int j=0;j<e[i].length;j++) e[i][j] = new Enemy(eStartX,eStartY,world); initButtons();//initialise all the buttons addMouseMotionListener(this); addMouseListener(this); }

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  • Zune API Library for Ruby

    - by kerry
    Those of you who know me, know my favorite music player is the Zune. For some reason it seems most of my spare time lately seems to be creating Zune API libraries for different languages (I have a PHP one as well).  Here’s another one for Ruby!  If you use it, let me know.  I would love to hear what people are working on. It’s hosted at github, and very easy to use. zune_card = Zune::ZuneCard.for('a_zune_tag') Checkout the README for deets on what fields the object will have.

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  • Software Architecture - From design to sucessful implementation

    - by user20358
    As the subject goes; once a software architect puts down the high level design and approach to a software that is to be developed from scratch, how does the team ensure that it is implemented successfully? To my mind the following things will need to be done Proper understanding of requirements Setting down coding practices and guidelines Regular code reviews to ensure the guidelines are being adhered to Revisiting the requirements phase and making necessary changes to design based on client inputs if there are any changes to requirements Proper documentation of what is being done in code Proper documentation of requirements and changes to them Last but not the least, implementing the design via object oriented code where appropriate Did I miss anything? Would love to hear any mistakes that you have learned from in your project experiences. What went wrong, what could have been done better. Thanks for taking the time..

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  • Common Javascript mistakes that severely affect performance?

    - by melee
    At a recent UI/UX MeetUp that I attended, I gave some feedback on a website that used Javascript (jQuery) for its interaction and UI - it was fairly simple animations and manipulation, but the performance on a decent computer was horrific. It actually reminded me of a lot of sites/programs that I've seen with the same issue, where certain actions just absolutely destroy performance. It is mostly in (or at least more noticeable in) situations where Javascript is almost serving as a Flash replacement. This is in stark contrast to some of the webapps that I have used that have far more Javascript and functionality but run very smoothly (COGNOS by IBM is one I can think of off the top of my head). I'd love to know some of the common issues that aren't considered when developing JS that will kill the performance of the site.

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  • How to promote/market an event that needs many people?

    - by stjowa
    My team is about to launch a new web application, http://wethepixels.com, that requires a lot of people to be on the site at the same time for the concept to be successful. Our team is preparing to promote/market an event for a specific date and time, in order to try to grab a large group of people to the site at once. For those who have gone through a similar web launch, we would love to hear ideas on the best way to market for a large group in a relatively short period of time. We have created a Facebook page and a Facebook event, but it has yet to grab much attention (surprisingly to us). Is there a better way to attract a large number of users in a short period of time? Thanks

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  • Decrease filesize when resizing with mogrify

    - by plua
    I love the command line options of imagemagick. Mogrify is great to resize images and change quality, which is what I use most often. However, I have noted that the filesize if often larger than what it should be. Especially with small images. For instance, I have a regular 640px (width) photo, which I change to quality 80 and a width of 80px: mogrify -quality 80 -resize 80 file.jpg Works well and my image gets resized and the quality is changed to 80. However, the filesize is around 40Kb. For such a tiny image, that is huge! When I use mtPaint, and open the file and save it (not changing anything, just CTRL+O, CTRL+S), the filesize decreases with more than 95% to less than 2Kb! I have seen this is often the case. What goes wrong?

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  • When is my View too smart?

    - by Kyle Burns
    In this posting, I will discuss the motivation behind keeping View code as thin as possible when using patterns such as MVC, MVVM, and MVP.  Once the motivation is identified, I will examine some ways to determine whether a View contains logic that belongs in another part of the application.  While the concepts that I will discuss are applicable to most any pattern which favors a thin View, any concrete examples that I present will center on ASP.NET MVC. Design patterns that include a Model, a View, and other components such as a Controller, ViewModel, or Presenter are not new to application development.  These patterns have, in fact, been around since the early days of building applications with graphical interfaces.  The reason that these patterns emerged is simple – the code running closest to the user tends to be littered with logic and library calls that center around implementation details of showing and manipulating user interface widgets and when this type of code is interspersed with application domain logic it becomes difficult to understand and much more difficult to adequately test.  By removing domain logic from the View, we ensure that the View has a single responsibility of drawing the screen which, in turn, makes our application easier to understand and maintain. I was recently asked to take a look at an ASP.NET MVC View because the developer reviewing it thought that it possibly had too much going on in the view.  I looked at the .CSHTML file and the first thing that occurred to me was that it began with 40 lines of code declaring member variables and performing the necessary calculations to populate these variables, which were later either output directly to the page or used to control some conditional rendering action (such as adding a class name to an HTML element or not rendering another element at all).  This exhibited both of what I consider the primary heuristics (or code smells) indicating that the View is too smart: Member variables – in general, variables in View code are an indication that the Model to which the View is being bound is not sufficient for the needs of the View and that the View has had to augment that Model.  Notable exceptions to this guideline include variables used to hold information specifically related to rendering (such as a dynamically determined CSS class name or the depth within a recursive structure for indentation purposes) and variables which are used to facilitate looping through collections while binding. Arithmetic – as with member variables, the presence of arithmetic operators within View code are an indication that the Model servicing the View is insufficient for its needs.  For example, if the Model represents a line item in a sales order, it might seem perfectly natural to “normalize” the Model by storing the quantity and unit price in the Model and multiply these within the View to show the line total.  While this does seem natural, it introduces a business rule to the View code and makes it impossible to test that the rounding of the result meets the requirement of the business without executing the View.  Within View code, arithmetic should only be used for activities such as incrementing loop counters and calculating element widths. In addition to the two characteristics of a “Smart View” that I’ve discussed already, this View also exhibited another heuristic that commonly indicates to me the need to refactor a View and make it a bit less smart.  That characteristic is the existence of Boolean logic that either does not work directly with properties of the Model or works with too many properties of the Model.  Consider the following code and consider how logic that does not work directly with properties of the Model is just another form of the “member variable” heuristic covered earlier: @if(DateTime.Now.Hour < 12) {     <div>Good Morning!</div> } else {     <div>Greetings</div> } This code performs business logic to determine whether it is morning.  A possible refactoring would be to add an IsMorning property to the Model, but in this particular case there is enough similarity between the branches that the entire branching structure could be collapsed by adding a Greeting property to the Model and using it similarly to the following: <div>@Model.Greeting</div> Now let’s look at some complex logic around multiple Model properties: @if (ModelPageNumber + Model.NumbersToDisplay == Model.PageCount         || (Model.PageCount != Model.CurrentPage             && !Model.DisplayValues.Contains(Model.PageCount))) {     <div>There's more to see!</div> } In this scenario, not only is the View code difficult to read (you shouldn’t have to play “human compiler” to determine the purpose of the code), but it also complex enough to be at risk for logical errors that cannot be detected without executing the View.  Conditional logic that requires more than a single logical operator should be looked at more closely to determine whether the condition should be evaluated elsewhere and exposed as a single property of the Model.  Moving the logic above outside of the View and exposing a new Model property would simplify the View code to: @if(Model.HasMoreToSee) {     <div>There’s more to see!</div> } In this posting I have briefly discussed some of the more prominent heuristics that indicate a need to push code from the View into other pieces of the application.  You should now be able to recognize these symptoms when building or maintaining Views (or the Models that support them) in your applications.

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  • Can I buy a .CA if I have no affiliation with Canada?

    - by neezer
    Well, the title says it all. It seems by CIRA (http://www.cira.ca/home-en/?lang=en) that I cannot, but the website doesn't make it explicitly clear how they check or anything like that... I have a domain name that I'd love to register for a business that will likely start in the US (where I'm based), but hopefully will grow globally (probably including Canada), but I want to build a brand around the domain name, and I do not want to get slammed by Canada yanking the domain name back if they discover I have no connection there. I only have experience with .com and .us domain names, so this is new territory for me. Any advice?

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  • Error when trying to get movies off my Camera

    - by matt wilkie
    How do I retrieve movies and audio files from my Canon PowerShot S5 IS camera? Shotwell only sees the pictures. Mounting the camera via "Places Canon Digital Camera" and then clicking twice on the resulting desktop icon yields this error: could not display "gphoto2://[usb:001,002]/" There is nothing in /media. update: output of sudo fdisk -l Disk /dev/sda: 40.0 GB, 40007761920 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4864 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x3ee33ee2 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 2364 2612 1999872 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sda2 * 1 2364 18979840 83 Linux /dev/sda3 2613 4864 18089159+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA) /dev/sda5 2613 4864 18089158+ b W95 FAT32 Partition table entries are not in disk order Solution: install gphotofs, then Nautilus shows camera contents similar to a standard usb storage device (though note that gphotofs does not yet support adding to or deleting contents).

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  • Week in Geek: Malware-Infected Web Sites Doubled Since Last Year

    - by Asian Angel
    This week we learned how to get spelling autocorrect across all applications on a Windows system, “diagnose DSL hang ups, extract media files from PowerPoint presentations, & restrict IE to a single website”, customize the Ubuntu bootloader screen, get smartphone-style word suggestion on Windows systems, learned what character encodings are and how they differ, and more. Photo by Profound Whatever.HTG Explains: What Are Character Encodings and How Do They Differ?How To Make Disposable Sleeves for Your In-Ear MonitorsMacs Don’t Make You Creative! So Why Do Artists Really Love Apple?

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  • How To Make Disposable Sleeves for Your In-Ear Monitors

    - by YatriTrivedi
    In-ear monitors are great, until the rubber sleeves stop being comfortable. Here’s a quick and cheap way to make disposable ones using foam ear plugs so you can stay comfortable while listening. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Macs Don’t Make You Creative! So Why Do Artists Really Love Apple? MacX DVD Ripper Pro is Free for How-To Geek Readers (Time Limited!) HTG Explains: What’s a Solid State Drive and What Do I Need to Know? How to Get Amazing Color from Photos in Photoshop, GIMP, and Paint.NET Learn To Adjust Contrast Like a Pro in Photoshop, GIMP, and Paint.NET Have You Ever Wondered How Your Operating System Got Its Name? Lakeside Sunset in the Mountains [Wallpaper] Taskbar Meters Turn Your Taskbar into a System Resource Monitor Create Shortcuts for Your Favorite or Most Used Folders in Ubuntu Create Custom Sized Thumbnail Images with Simple Image Resizer [Cross-Platform] Etch a Circuit Board using a Simple Homemade Mixture Sync Blocker Stops iTunes from Automatically Syncing

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  • What are the preferred documentation tools for the major programming languages?

    - by Dave Peck
    I'm interested in compiling a list of major programming languages and their preferred documentation toolsets. To scope this a bit: The exact structure of the answer may vary from language to language, but there appear to be two aspects common to all languages: (1) in-code syntax for documentation, and (2) documentation generators that make use of said syntax. There are also cases where generators are used independent of code. For example, tutorial-style documentation is common in the Python world and is often disconnected from underlying code. Many languages have multiple commonly-used documentation strategies and tool chains, and I'd love to capture this. Finally, there are cross-language tools like Doxygen that also have some traction and would be worth noting here. Here are some obvious target languages to start with: Python, Ruby, Java, C#, PHP, Objective-C, C/C++, Haskell, Erlang, Scala, Clojure If this question catches on, I'll try and keep this section updated with the most recent list. Thanks!

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  • How to fix corrupted desktop icons and fonts?

    - by David Harvey
    I love Linux, but am a real novice. I installed Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 32bit alongside Windows XP. The installation seems to work just fine except for the desktop. The icons & font becomes corrupted to the point that it looks like Chinese. After surfing with Mozilla Firefox for a long time, the same problem begins with the web pages. I want to be free of Windows, but must solve this problem first. Can you help? Thank you.

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  • Acer Aspire installation of Ubuntu as the one and only OS

    - by Anthalis
    I am quite sick of a Win7 limited edition that was pre-installed on my Acer Aspire One 533. I want to have Ubuntu as the only OS on this little thing. I have tested Ubuntu on a pretty unstable system and I am simply in love with it, despite the fact that I am still on the learning path. So my questions is how do I format/erase all previous info, including windows files? I am interested in a real cleanup of the drives rather than just a re-partitioning, because I travel every now and then and I want to prevent any personal data remaining on the drives for anyone with recovery knowledge to sniff through. Thanks in advance for your input and advice. A.

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  • How do you achieve a numeric versioning scheme with Git?

    - by Erlend
    My organization is considering moving from SVN to Git. One argument against moving is as follows: How do we do versioning? We have an SDK distribution based on the NetBeans Platform. As the svn revisions are simple numbers we can use them to extend the version numbers of our plugins and SDK builds. How do we handle this when we move to Git? Possible solutions: Using the build number from hudson (Problem: you have to check hudson to correlate that to an actual git version) Manually upping the version for nightly and stable (Problem: Learning curve, human error) If someone else has encountered a similar problem and solved it, we'd love to hear how.

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  • Desktop Fun: Fantasy Warriors Wallpaper Collection

    - by Asian Angel
    Whether they are defending their homelands and the innocent, seeking fame and fortune, or out to conquer and plunder these fantasy warriors will add a nice bit of adventure to your desktop. Get ready to journey into other realms with our Fantasy Warriors Wallpaper collection Latest Features How-To Geek ETC 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 How to Change the Default Application for Android Tasks Stop Believing TV’s Lies: The Real Truth About "Enhancing" Images The How-To Geek Valentine’s Day Gift Guide Inspire Geek Love with These Hilarious Geek Valentines Four Awesome TRON Legacy Themes for Chrome and Iron Anger is Illogical – Old School Style Instructional Video [Star Trek Mashup] Get the Old Microsoft Paint UI Back in Windows 7 Relax and Sleep Is a Soothing Sleep Timer Google Rolls Out Two-Factor Authentication Peaceful Early Morning by the Riverside Wallpaper

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  • Get Creative soundcard working correctly

    - by schwiz
    I am trying to get sound going on my fresh install of 10.10. I have a creative fatlity branded sound card. My ALSA information. Most things seems to be working out of the box, once I turned off my onboard sound in my BIOS the soundcard kicked in. However, the system sounds aren't working (I love those drums and the road runner sound when you press backspace). Also, with a 7.1 setup my center channel and subwoofer don't work at all. All other channels are working like a champ. So I am trying to accomplish two things, get system sounds working and get center/sub channels working. How should I try to fix this?

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  • A few words about Micro-Benchmarks

    Its been a long time since I included my this discussion is only approximately correct disclaimer so Ill just preface it here.  In the interest of space and clarity, this discussion is only approximately correct.  OK, now we can move on I love micro-benchmarks. Really.  I rely on micro-benchmarks to help me understand what is going on in my system on a day to day or even build to build basis.  Understanding which micro-benchmarks are really vital is essential to keeping your...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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  • Is installing Ubuntu 10.10 still a viable option?

    - by Kartik Anand
    I fell in love with ubuntu when 10.10 was released. It was the perfect OS for me, but then, the 11 and the 12 series came, and I starting hating it (Pun intended) But seriously, I want to stick to ubuntu 10.10, I have the .iso file with me. I want to go ahead and install it. My question is, since its not currently supported, what problems will I face? Will I be eligible for update? I mean atleast till the time it was supported Can I somehow get security updates and patches Will the latest software available still run on ubuntu 10.10 I don't care much about drivers, as much as I care about python, php, apache, wine and other softwares. Will the software center work?and be updates as well? What issues am I most prone to face?

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  • Mark Hurd on the Customer Revolution: Oracle's Top 10 Insights

    - by Richard Lefebvre
    Reprint of an article from Forbes Businesses that fail to focus on customer experience will hear a giant sucking sound from their vanishing profitability. Because in today’s dynamic global marketplace, consumers now hold the power in the buyer-seller equation, and sellers need to revamp their strategy for this new world order. The ability to relentlessly deliver connected, personalized and rewarding customer experiences is rapidly becoming one of the primary sources of competitive advantage in today’s dynamic global marketplace. And the inability or unwillingness to realize that the customer is a company’s most important asset will lead, inevitably, to decline and failure. Welcome to the lifecycle of customer experience, in which consumers explore, engage, shop, buy, ask, compare, complain, socialize, exchange, and more across multiple channels with the unconditional expectation that each of those interactions will be completed in an efficient and personalized manner however, wherever, and whenever the customer wants. While many niche companies are offering point solutions within that sprawling and complex spectrum of needs and requirements, businesses looking to deliver superb customer experiences are still left having to do multiple product evaluations, multiple contract negotiations, multiple test projects, multiple deployments, and–perhaps most annoying of all–multiple and never-ending integration projects to string together all those niche products from all those niche vendors. With its new suite of customer-experience solutions, Oracle believes it can help companies unravel these challenges and move at the speed of their customers, anticipating their needs and desires and creating enduring and profitable relationships. Those solutions span the full range of marketing, selling, commerce, service, listening/insights, and social and collaboration tools for employees. When Oracle launched its suite of Customer Experience solutions at a recent event in New York City, president Mark Hurd analyzed the customer experience revolution taking place and presented Oracle’s strategy for empowering companies to capitalize on this important market shift. From Hurd’s presentation and related materials, I’ve extracted a list of Hurd’s Top 10 Insights into the Customer Revolution. 1. Please Don’t Feed the Competitor’s Pipeline!After enduring a poor experience, 89% of consumers say they would immediately take their business to your competitor. (Except where noted, the source for these findings is the 2011 Customer Experience Impact (CEI) Report including a survey commissioned by RightNow (acquired by Oracle in March 2012) and conducted by Harris Interactive.) 2. The Addressable Market Is Massive. Only 1% of consumers say their expectations were always met by their actual experiences. 3. They’re Willing to Pay More! In return for a great experience, 86% of consumers say they’ll pay up to 25% more. 4. The Social Media Microphone Is Always Live. After suffering through a poor experience, more than 25% of consumers said they posted a negative comment on Twitter or Facebook or other social media sites. Conversely, of those consumers who got a response after complaining, 22% posted positive comments about the company. 5.  The New Deal Is Never Done: Embrace the Entire Customer Lifecycle. An appropriately active and engaged relationship, says Hurd, extends across every step of the entire processs: need, research, select, purchase, receive, use, maintain, and recommend. 6. The 360-Degree Commitment. Customers want to do business with companies that actively and openly demonstrate the desire to establish strong and seamless connections across employees, the company, and the customer, says research firm Temkin Group in its report called “The CX Competencies.” 7. Understand the Emotional Drivers Behind Brand Love. What makes consumers fall in love with a brand? Among the top factors are friendly employees and customer reps (73%), easy access to information and support (55%), and personalized experiences, such as when companies know precisely what products or services customers have purchased in the past and what issues those customers have raised (36%). 8.  The Importance of Immediate Action. You’ve got one week to respond–and then the opportunity’s lost. If your company needs more than a week to answer a prospect’s question or request, most of those prospects will terminate the relationship. 9.  Want More Revenue, Less Churn, and More Referrals? Then improve the overall customer experience: Forrester’s research says that approach put an extra $900 million in the pockets of wireless service providers, $800 million for hotels, and $400 million for airlines. 10. The Formula for CX Success.  Hurd says it includes three elegantly interlaced factors: Connected Engagement, to personalize the experience; Actionable Insight, to maximize the engagement; and Optimized Execution, to deliver on the promise of value. RECOMMENDED READING: The Top 10 Strategic CIO Issues For 2013 Wal-Mart, Amazon, eBay: Who’s the Speed King of Retail? Career Suicide and the CIO: 4 Deadly New Threats Memo to Marc Benioff: Social Is a Tool, Not an App

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  • Believeland

    - by AllenMWhite
    My daughter sent me this link to an article on ESPN called Believeland , which is a bit of a Tolstoy, but gives you a bit of the feel of what it's like to be from Cleveland. We love our city, even as many of us leave it for greener (and warmer) pastures elsewhere. One of the things I hope you'll find when you come here for SQL Saturday 60 on February 5, is what a great place it is to live here. Our call for speakers is open until Sunday. I hope to see you here. Allen...(read more)

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  • Best Practices - Dynamic Reconfiguration

    - by jsavit
    This post is one of a series of "best practices" notes for Oracle VM Server for SPARC (formerly named Logical Domains) Overview of dynamic Reconfiguration Oracle VM Server for SPARC supports Dynamic Reconfiguration (DR), making it possible to add or remove resources to or from a domain (virtual machine) while it is running. This is extremely useful because resources can be shifted to or from virtual machines in response to load conditions without having to reboot or interrupt running applications. For example, if an application requires more CPU capacity, you can add CPUs to improve performance, and remove them when they are no longer needed. You can use even use Dynamic Resource Management (DRM) policies that automatically add and remove CPUs to domains based on load. How it works (in broad general terms) Dynamic Reconfiguration is done in coordination with Solaris, which recognises a hypervisor request to change its virtual machine configuration and responds appropriately. In essence, Solaris receives a message saying "you now have 16 more CPUs numbered 16 to 31" or "8GB more RAM starting at address X" or "here's a new network or disk device - have fun with it". These actions take very little time. Solaris then can start using the new resource. In the case of added CPUs, that means dispatching processes and potentially binding interrupts to the new CPUs. For memory, Solaris adds the new memory pages to its "free" list and starts using them. Comparable actions occur with network and disk devices: they are recognised by Solaris and then used. Removing is the reverse process: after receiving the DR message to free specific CPUs, Solaris unbinds interrupts assigned to the CPUs and stops dispatching process threads. That takes very little time. primary # ldm list NAME STATE FLAGS CONS VCPU MEMORY UTIL UPTIME primary active -n-cv- SP 16 4G 1.0% 6d 22h 29m ldom1 active -n---- 5000 16 8G 0.9% 6h 59m primary # ldm set-core 5 ldom1 primary # ldm list NAME STATE FLAGS CONS VCPU MEMORY UTIL UPTIME primary active -n-cv- SP 16 4G 0.2% 6d 22h 29m ldom1 active -n---- 5000 40 8G 0.1% 6h 59m primary # ldm set-core 2 ldom1 primary # ldm list NAME STATE FLAGS CONS VCPU MEMORY UTIL UPTIME primary active -n-cv- SP 16 4G 1.0% 6d 22h 29m ldom1 active -n---- 5000 16 8G 0.9% 6h 59m Memory pages are vacated by copying their contents to other memory locations and wiping them clean. Solaris may have to swap memory contents to disk if the remaining RAM isn't enough to hold all the contents. For this reason, deallocating memory can take longer on a loaded system. Even on a lightly loaded system it took several 7 or 8 seconds to switch the domain below between 8GB and 24GB of RAM. primary # ldm set-mem 24g ldom1 primary # ldm list NAME STATE FLAGS CONS VCPU MEMORY UTIL UPTIME primary active -n-cv- SP 16 4G 0.1% 6d 22h 36m ldom1 active -n---- 5000 16 24G 0.2% 7h 6m primary # ldm set-mem 8g ldom1 primary # ldm list NAME STATE FLAGS CONS VCPU MEMORY UTIL UPTIME primary active -n-cv- SP 16 4G 0.7% 6d 22h 37m ldom1 active -n---- 5000 16 8G 0.3% 7h 7m What if the device is in use? (this is the anecdote that inspired this blog post) If CPU or memory is being removed, releasing it pretty straightforward, using the method described above. The resources are released, and Solaris continues with less capacity. It's not as simple with a network or I/O device: you don't want to yank a device out from underneath an application that might be using it. In the following example, I've added a virtual network device to ldom1 and want to take it away, even though it's been plumbed. primary # ldm rm-vnet vnet19 ldom1 Guest LDom returned the following reason for failing the operation: Resource Information ---------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------- /devices/virtual-devices@100/channel-devices@200/network@1 Network interface net1 VIO operation failed because device is being used in LDom ldom1 Failed to remove VNET instance That's what I call a helpful error message - telling me exactly what was wrong. In this case the problem is easily solved. I know this NIC is seen in the guest as net1 so: ldom1 # ifconfig net1 down unplumb Now I can dispose of it, and even the virtual switch I had created for it: primary # ldm rm-vnet vnet19 ldom1 primary # ldm rm-vsw primary-vsw9 If I had to take away the device disruptively, I could have used ldm rm-vnet -f but that could disrupt whoever was using it. It's better if that can be avoided. Summary Oracle VM Server for SPARC provides dynamic reconfiguration, which lets you modify a guest domain's CPU, memory and I/O configuration on the fly without reboot. You can add and remove resources as needed, and even automate this for CPUs by setting up resource policies. Taking things away can be more complicated than giving, especially for devices like disks and networks that may contain application and system state or be involved in a transaction. LDoms and Solaris cooperative work together to coordinate resource allocation and de-allocation in a safe and effective way. For best practices, use dynamic reconfiguration to make the best use of your system's resources.

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