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  • Using WCF to expose underlying process

    - by Steven
    I think I must be a little dull because I'm having so much difficulty with this. I use WCF for pretty much everything in-house, it's the most appropriate technology. I have a new Silverlight 3 app that is connecting to the WCF service and that's working fine. Where the problem begins is: Because of the expense in creating the objects within this service and the high correlation of individual objects being shared between clients I want to have a console application that basically gathers/calculates/caches all the data for the service 24/7 and the service basically connects to the console app (or whatever it is) and gets the pre-processed data. eg, think of it in terms of a stock reporting app (which it is). Person A has a portfolio of x, y z Person B has a portfolio of x, q, z, r The service needs to provide updated metrics on how their portfolio is performing. So instead of every 1 second processing person A, then person B, the app independently gathers the stock price and persons position information into memory and the service just queries the in memory result. Thanks for your help, I really am feeling dumb right now.

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  • Auto-resolving a hostname in WCF Metadata Publishing

    - by Mike C
    I am running a self-hosted WCF service. In the service configuration, I am using localhost in my BaseAddresses that I hook my endpoints to. When trying to connect to an endpoint using the WCF test client, I have no problem connecting to the endpoint and getting the metadata using the machine's name. The problem that I run into is that the client that is generated from metadata uses localhost in the endpoint URLs it wants to connect to. I'm assuming that this is because localhost is the endpoint URL published by metadata. As a result, any calls to the methods on the service will fail since localhost on the calling machine isn't running the service. What I would like to figure out is if it is possible for the service metadata to publish the proper URL to a client depending on the client who is calling it. For example, if I was requesting the service metadata from a machine on the same network as the server the endpoint should be net.tcp://MYSERVER:1234/MyEndpoint. If I was requesting it from a machine outside the network, the URL should be net.tcp://MYSERVER.mydomain.com:1234/MyEndpoint. And obviously if the client was on the same machine, THEN the URL could be net.tcp://localhost:1234/MyEndpoint. Is this just a flaw in the default IMetadataExchange contract? Is there some reason the metadata needs to publish the information in a non-contextual way? Is there another way I should be configuring my BaseAddresses in order to get the functionality I want? Thanks, Mike

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  • VPN within a VM to allow for internet access on the host

    - by David Durrant
    I have a network connection (created under Networks and Sharing) that I use to connect to a customer's site. But when I use this to connect to the site, I loose all access to the public internet, and can only access customer specific items. I want to circumvent this issue by creating a VM and then utilizing the VM to connect to the network location and interact within the customer's domain, while leaving my host machine open to the internet. I'm not extremely familiar with networking, but I have a few basic skills. Please let me know if this is possible and what the correct procedures are. I already have a VM created with VirtualBox, and both the host and guest are running Windows 7 x64. I have created duplicate VPNs already, but can only connect successfully on the host machine.

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  • Architecture for new ASP.NET web application

    - by Anders Abel
    I'm maintaining an application which currently is just a web service (built with WCF) and a database backend. The web service is built in layers with a linq-to-sql data access part with core functionality in an own assembly and on top of that the web service assembly which contains the WCF code. The core assembly also handles all business logic rules (very few actually). The customer now wants a Web interface for the application instead of just accessing it through other applications which are consuming the web service. I'm quite lost on modern web application design, so I would like some advice on what architecture and frameworks to use for the web application. The web application will be using the same core assembly with business rules and the linq-to-sql data access layer as the web service. Some concepts I've thought about are: ASP.NET MVC Webforms AJAX controls - possibly leting the AJAX controls access the existing web service through JSON. Are there any more concepts I should look into? Which one is the best for a fresh project? The development tools are Visual Studio 2008 Team Edition for Developers targeting .NET 3.5. An upgrade to Visual Studio 2010 Premium (or maybe even Ultimate) is possible if it gives any benefits.

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  • What's the vbs code to schedule a task every time Windows starts up?

    - by Wing C. Chen
    I would like to know how to write up the vbs code to schedule a windows task to start a .exe program every time the Windows starts up. I found the following code online: strComputer = "." Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" _ & "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2") Set objNewJob = objWMIService.Get("Win32_ScheduledJob") errJobCreated = objNewJob.Create _ ("Notepad.exe", "********123000.000000-420", _ True , 1 OR 4 OR 16, , , JobID) Wscript.Echo errJobCreated But it only tells me how to schedule the task every on some specific days and hours. I thought of creating a windows service. However the following is the story why I must look for an alternative to it. I created a windows service with RunAsService for my java program wrapped with Janel. The Service worked fine when I first installed and started it. However, after restarting my windows xp, a dialog window poped out saying that my janel generated .exe file has crashed, with my RunAsService service kept on going. The service worked fine when I terminated the service and restarted it again manually. Nevertheless, the same crash happens over and over again every time I restart my Windows.

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  • how to know application is going to destroy/remove?

    - by Bhavesh Jethani
    My requirement is, i want to cancel my alarm manager or services when application going to destroy/closed. if i am in activity A by clicking on button started activity B suddenly user is going to press home button. ---- if application is running in background then don't cancel service. but when he going to remove from recent list of application at that time cancel service. Service/Alarm manager will work even when user has sent application in background by pressing home screen. No of way application can destroy or removed. 1) by clicking back button multiple times if stack have multiple activities. 2) by pressing home button and then remove from recent list. i am facing issue with (2)second option. in that when user press home button at that time service or alarm manager should be work. But when user will be going to remove application from recent list at that time i want to cancel service/alarm manager. Second issue. my service is called at fix interval of time. if i will write code on onCreate(), onDestroy() in each activity. then timer will start from beginning. Is there any listners who talk me application is going to closed?

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  • Re-downloading Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Standard because of license issues?

    - by James Watt
    I have many clients who have purchased Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Standard. Unlike other Microsoft software, there is not a serial number provided for each customer to install the software. Futhermore, Microsoft's TechNet website lists this information about SQL Server instead of providing a key: "This product is pre-pidded." This means that the configuration file for SQL server contains your serial number instead of manually entering it. My question is then: does this serial change for each customer? The reason I ask: I'd rather not download a 3.2GB disc image over and over again for each of my customers individually. But, I don't want to risk using the same image over and over again resulting in Microsoft banning the serial for over use (as opposed to each customer using their copy with THEIR serial number.) Thanks in advance.

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  • mysql single database relocation

    - by asdmin
    I would like to know if it's possible to operate different databases on different filesystem locations. Background: we are a hosting service, which hosts mysql, web, and smtp to it's customer, but all our services (sql, smtp, http) are located in a different place. We are going to assign a single logical volume to a customer, which will accommodate the customer's mailing, weppages and (hopefully) sql database. Web pages and mailing are already covered, but I am not able to find a configuration setting which would enable me to specify the location of a database (the directory where mysql stores the DB). Let me please highlight, the target here is to relocate different databases to different locations in the filesystem, not moving them from a single place to an another (single) place. Also please do not bother answering with soft and hard symbolic links. ;) Thanks

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  • Add webservice reference, the classes in different file

    - by ArunDhaJ
    Hi, When I add webservice as service reference in my .Net project, it creates a service folder within "Service References". All the interfaces and classes are contained within that service folder. I wanted to know how to split the interface's method and classes. Actually I wanted the web service reference to import classes defined in different dll. I wanted to define this way because of my design constraints. I've 3 layered application. Of which third layer is communication layer which holds all web service references. second is business layer and first is presentation layer. If the class declarations are in layer-3 and I'm accessing those classes from presentation layer, it is logically a cross-layer-access-violation. Instead, I wanted a separate project which holds only the class declarations and this would be used in all 3 layers. I didn't faced any problems to achieve this with layer-1 and layer-2. But, I'm not sure how to make communication layer to use this common declaration dll. Your suggestion would help me to design my application better. Thanks in advance Regards ArunDhaJ

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  • Dreamweaver Files uploaded to Win 2008 server cause login prompt

    - by Lil
    I have a customer who uses a 4 year old version of Dreamweaver to edit her webpages. My hosting reseller account is with a company that uses Windows Server 2008. Every time my customer edits a page and uploads it, I have to set the permissions for that file to be readable, manually from the site's control panel. The customer is furious with me because her files cause the login prompt. I am able to upload files myself that remain readable to the site with both Filezilla and with Frontpage. I am assuming that her Dreamweaver settings are the cause of the problem but I don't have that program myself and don't know what to advise her. Any suggestions?

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  • Axis2 SOAP Envelope Header Information

    - by BigZig
    I'm consuming a web service that places an authentication token in the SOAP envelope header. It appears (through looking at the samples that came with the WS WSDL) that if the stub is generated in .NET, this header information is exposed through a member variable in the stub class. However, when I generate my Axis2 java stub using WSDL2Java it doesn't appear to be exposed anywhere. What is the correct way to extract this information from the SOAP envelope header? WSDL: http://www.vbar.com/zangelo/SecurityService.wsdl C# Sample: using System; using SignInSample.Security; // web service using SignInSample.Document; // web service namespace SignInSample { class SignInSampleClass { [STAThread] static void Main(string[] args) { // login to the Vault and set up the document service SecurityService secSvc = new SecurityService(); secSvc.Url = "http://localhost/AutodeskDM/Services/SecurityService.asmx"; secSvc.SecurityHeaderValue = new SignInSample.Security.SecurityHeader(); secSvc.SignIn("Administrator", "", "Vault"); DocumentServiceWse docSvc = new DocumentServiceWse(); docSvc.Url = "http://localhost/AutodeskDM/Services/DocumentService.asmx"; docSvc.SecurityHeaderValue = new SignInSample.Document.SecurityHeader(); docSvc.SecurityHeaderValue.Ticket = secSvc.SecurityHeaderValue.Ticket; docSvc.SecurityHeaderValue.UserId = secSvc.SecurityHeaderValue.UserId; } } } The sample illustrates what I'd like to do. Notice how the secSvc instance has a SecurityHeaderValue member variable that is populated after a successful secSvc.SignIn() invocation. Here's some relevant API documentation regarding the SignIn method: Although there is no return value, a successful sign in will populate the SecurityHeaderValue of the security service. The SecurityHeaderValue information is then used for other web service calls.

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  • Javamail doesn't send a mail

    - by Jose Hdez
    I am developing a Java application and I am using Javamail to send a mail. My code is the following: Properties props = new Properties(); props.put("mail.smtp.host", "diana.cartif.es"); props.put("mail.smtp.socketFactory.port", "465"); props.put("mail.smtp.socketFactory.class","javax.net.ssl.SSLSocketFactory"); props.put("mail.smtp.auth", "true"); props.put("mail.smtp.port", "465"); Session session = Session.getDefaultInstance(props, new javax.mail.Authenticator() { protected PasswordAuthentication getPasswordAuthentication() { return new PasswordAuthentication("alerts","pass"); } }); Message message = new MimeMessage(session); message.setFrom(new InternetAddress("[email protected]")); message.setRecipients(Message.RecipientType.TO,InternetAddress.parse("[email protected]")); message.setSubject("Testing Subject"); message.setText("Dear Mail Crawler," +"\n\n No spam to my email, please!"); Transport.send(message); However when I execute this code it throws an Exception: javax.mail.MessagingException: Could not connect to SMTP host: diana.cartif.es, port: 465, response: -1 at com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPTransport.openServer(SMTPTransport.java:1960) at com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPTransport.protocolConnect(SMTPTransport.java:642) at javax.mail.Service.connect(Service.java:317) at javax.mail.Service.connect(Service.java:176) at javax.mail.Service.connect(Service.java:125) at javax.mail.Transport.send0(Transport.java:194) at javax.mail.Transport.send(Transport.java:124) at com.cartif.data.MainConnection.getFTPConnection(MainConnection.java:106) at com.cartif.main.Main.connectToServer(Main.java:72) at com.cartif.main.Main.main(Main.java:60) Data to connect is right because I checked it in my Mail Server. Could someone help me please? Thanks!

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  • WCF cross-domain policy security error

    - by George2
    Hello everyone, I am using VSTS 2008 + C# + WCF + .Net 3.5 + Silverlight 3.0. I host Silverlight control in an html page and debug it from VSTS 2008 (press F5, then run in VSTS 2008 built-in ASP.Net development web server), then call another WCF service (hosted in another machine running IIS 7.0 + Vista). The WCF service is very simple, just return a constant string to client. When invoking the WCF service from Silverlight, I got the following error message, An error occurred while trying to make a request to URI 'https://LabTest/Test.svc'. This could be due to attempting to access a service in a cross-domain way without a proper cross-domain policy in place, or a policy that is unsuitable for SOAP services. You may need to contact the owner of the service to publish a cross-domain policy file and to ensure it allows SOAP-related HTTP headers to be sent. This error may also be caused by using internal types in the web service proxy without using the InternalsVisibleToAttribute attribute. Please see the inner exception for more details. Here is the clientaccesspolicy.xml file, anything wrong? <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <access-policy> <cross-domain-access> <policy> <allow-from http-request-headers="*"> <domain uri="*"> </domain> </allow-from> <grant-to> <resource path="/" include-subpaths="true"></resource> </grant-to> </policy> </cross-domain-access> </access-policy> thanks in advance, George

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  • Preventing a heavy process from sinking in the swap file

    - by eran
    Our service tends to fall asleep during the nights on our client's server, and then have a hard time waking up. What seems to happen is that the process heap, which is sometimes several hundreds of MB, is moved to the swap file. This happens at night, when our service is not used, and others are scheduled to run (DB backups, AV scans etc). When this happens, after a few hours of inactivity the first call to the service takes up to a few minutes (consequent calls take seconds). I'm quite certain it's an issue of virtual memory management, and I really hate the idea of forcing the OS to keep our service in the physical memory. I know doing that will hurt other processes on the server, and decrease the overall server throughput. Having that said, our clients just want our app to be responsive. They don't care if nightly jobs take longer. I vaguely remember there's a way to force Windows to keep pages on the physical memory, but I really hate that idea. I'm leaning more towards some internal or external watchdog that will initiate higher-level functionalities (there is already some internal scheduler that does very little, and makes no difference). If there were a 3rd party tool that provided that kind of service is would have been just as good. I'd love to hear any comments, recommendations and common solutions to this kind of problem. The service is written in VC2005 and runs on Windows servers.

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  • Grouping extensions in Asterisk

    - by Matt
    We have an asterisk based phone system with multiple clients connected to it. At the moment, all the extension numbers fall in the range 100 - 9999. But, now we have an issue where a particular customer wants to come onto our service and insists on keeping their existing extension list. Is there a way of having extensions 700 for one customer, and also the same number range to another customer. But yet having them belong to a different group? I see there is a concept of groups in asterisk but none of them seem to provide a solution to this.

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  • Grouping extensions in Asterisk

    - by Matt H
    We have an asterisk based phone system with multiple clients connected to it. At the moment, all the extension numbers fall in the range 100 - 9999. But, now we have an issue where a particular customer wants to come onto our service and insists on keeping their existing extension list. Is there a way of having extensions 700 for one customer, and also the same number range to another customer. But yet having them belong to a different group? I see there is a concept of groups in asterisk but none of them seem to provide a solution to this.

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  • Creating sublines on Joomla menu items

    - by ploughansen
    In my toplevel menu items, I would like to make a subline for each item. I don't think it's possible to do by default, byt YooTheme has done it in many of their templates. The menu output look like this <div class="moduletable_menu"> <ul id="mainmenu" class="menu"> <li class="active item1" id="current"> <a href="URL_HIDDEN"> <span>Services</span> </a> </li> </ul> This basically outputs a one line menu item like so: Services What I would like to do is have a menu item like this: Services Service x, Service y, Service z For reference, have a look at the main menu on the YooTheme demo page. The way YooTheme does this, is using two pipes (||) as a linebreak, so in the Joomla backend you type "Services||Service x, Service y, Service z" as the menu title, and then there must be some fancy javascript that breaks this title into two spans, ready to be styled using css. Does anyone know of an easy way to code this? Please note that I am looking to build this feature into a custom template (ie. non-yootheme). Also note that I am not using MooTools, but Jquery instead.

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  • Enterprise Platform in Python, Design Advice

    - by Jason Miesionczek
    I am starting the design of a somewhat large enterprise platform in Python, and was wondering if you guys can give me some advice as to how to organize the various components and which packages would help achieve the goals of scalability, maintainability, and reliability. The system is basically a service that collects data from various outside sources, with each outside source having its own separate application. These applications would poll a central database and get any requests that have been submitted to perform on the external source. There will be a main website and REST/SOAP API that should also have access to the central data service. My initial thought was to use Django for the web site, web service and data access layer (using its built-in ORM), and then the outside source applications can use the web service(s) to get the information they need to process the request and save the results. Using this method would allow me to have multiple instances of the service applications running on the same or different machines to balance out the load. Are there more elegant means of accomplishing this? i've heard of messaging systems such as MQ, would something like that be beneficial in this scenario? My other thought was to use a completely separate data service not based on Django, and use some kind of remoting or remote objects (in they exist in Python) to interact with the data model. The downside here would be with the website which would become much slower if it had to push all of its data requests through a second layer. I would love to hear what other developers have come up with to achieve these goals in the most flexible way possible.

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  • HTML input not working correctly with AJAX update panels used else where on page

    - by Sean P
    I have some update panels on my page that do some asyncpostbacks to keep some dropdownlists correctly populated. My problem is that on my page i have an HTML input that is handling some file uploads. With the AJAX on the page with asyncpostbacks, and while i step through my code behind, the files arent being uploaded. Using a postbacktrigger (non-async) is not possible because of my layout. Here is my code: <div id="divFileInputs" runat="server"> <input id="file1" name="fileInput" type="file" runat="server" size="50" style="width: 50em" onfocus="AddFileInput()" class="textbox" /></div> <select id="selectFileList" name="ListBox1" size="5" style="width: 50em; text-align: left;" class="textbox" /> <input id="RemoveAttachmentButton" type="button" value="Remove" onclick="RemoveFileInput()" class="removebutton " /> </div> Here is my code behind: Protected Sub CopyAttachments(ByVal issueId As String) Dim files As HttpFileCollection = Request.Files Dim myStream As System.IO.Stream Dim service As New SubmitService.Service For i As Integer = 0 To files.Count - 1 Dim postedFile As HttpPostedFile = files(i) Dim fileNameWithoutPath As String = System.IO.Path.GetFileName(postedFile.FileName) If fileNameWithoutPath.Length > 0 And issueId.Length > 0 Then Dim fileLength As Integer = postedFile.ContentLength Dim fileContents(fileLength) As Byte ' Read the file into the byte array. Send it to the web service. myStream = postedFile.InputStream myStream.Read(fileContents, 0, fileLength) service.ClearQuestAttachToIssue(issueId, fileNameWithoutPath, fileContents) End If Next service = Nothing End Sub When I put a breakpoint in at the declaration of service and then check the value of "files", the count is 0. I am expecting it to be 2 when i have one file uploaded. Anyone know how to fix this?

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  • Integrated Security on Reporting Services XML Datasource

    - by Nathan
    Hey all, I am working on setting up my report server to use a web service as an XML datasource. I seem to be having authentication issues between the web service and the report with I choose to use Integrated security. Here's what I have: 1) I have a website w/ an exposed service. This website is configured to run ONLY on Integrated Security. This means that we have all other modes turned off AND Enabled anonymous access turned off under directory security. 2) Within the Web.config of the website, I have the authentication mode set to Windows. 3) I have the report datasource set to being an XML data source. I have the correct URL to the service and have it set to Windows Integrated Security. Since I am making a hop from the Browser to the Reporting Server to the Web Service, I wonder if I am having an issue w/ Kerberos, but I am not sure. When I try to access the service, I get a 401 error. Here are the IIS logs that I am generating: 2011-01-07 14:52:12 W3SVC IP_ADDY POST /URL.asmx - 80 - IP_ADDY - 401 1 0 2011-01-07 14:52:12 W3SVC IP_ADDY POST /URL.asmx - 80 - IP_ADDY - 401 1 5 Has anyone worked out this issue before? Thanks!

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  • How to add or remove a value inside a table cell on selection / de-selection of checkbox of that row, trying to submit the value via Jquery?

    - by Raul
    Here is the table: <%= form_tag '', :id => "costs" do %> <table class="table table-bordered" id="service_cost"> <% @services.each do |service| %> <tbody> <tr> <td><%= check_box_tag :open_service, {}, false, :class => 'checkable' %></td> <td><%= service.phone %></td> <td><%= service.internet %></td> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> <td><%= service.house_keeping %> </td> <td>0.0 </td> <td><%= service.laundry %></td> <td><%= text_field_tag "service_cost", service.total, :class => "input-small" %></td> </tr> <% end %> when the form gets submitted, the javascript gets into action: $("#costs").submit(function(){ formData=$("#costs").serializeArray(); processFormData(formData) return false; }); This ensures form submission on selecting the checkbox: $('.checkable').live('change', function() { $(this).parents('form:first').submit(); }); But, what I am looking for is adding or removing a cell value based on checkbox selection/de-selection and submitting it, kindly suggest a way to do it.

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  • What protocols will/are ISPs use for IPv6 deployment?

    - by rbeede
    Currently ISPs deal out addresses via DHCP for IPv4 dynamic (single) addresses. What protocol will/are ISPs going to use for IPv6 when they can hand a customer an entire /64 (or /48 if they are nice) block? DHCPv6, RA? For ISPs that support true end-to-end IPv6 will they provide gateway devices (similar to cable modem or true DSL bridges for example) that receive border information for that specific customer? I'm just trying to get an idea of how your common residential service customer will have to configure things in an IPv6 Internet (whenever that comes). Will it be something customers are expected to statically configure on their home wireless router? Today with IPv4 I do it like this: Modem (bridge) passes public IPv4 obtained via DHCPv4 from ISP to second device (wireless router). It in turn has its own DHCPv4 service it provides on the internal lan.

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  • Running an application from an USB device...

    - by Workshop Alex
    I'm working on a proof-of-concept application, containing a WCF service with console host and client, both on a single USB device. On the same device I will also have the client application which will connect to this service. The service uses the entity framework to connect to the database, which in this POC will just return a list of names. If it works, it will be used for a larger project. Creating the client and service was easy and this works well from USB. But getting the service to connect to the database isn't. I've found this site, suggesting that I should modify machine.config but that stops the XCopy deployment. This project cannot change any setting of the PC, so this suggestion is bad. I cannot create a deployment setup either. The whole thing just needs to run from USB disk. So, how do I get it to run? (The service just selects a list of names from the database, which it returns to the client. If this POC works, it will do far more complex things!)

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  • Any web services with APIs for outsourcing webapp transactional email? [closed]

    - by Tauren
    My webapp needs to send customized messages to members and I'm wondering if there is an inexpensive and easy to use web service that would meet my needs. The types of mail I will be sending include: New account activation email (sent ASAP) Daily status report of user's account (sent anytime) Event reminders (sent at specific time) Specifically, I would like the following features: RESTful API to add an email message into the send queue A way to add a priority to each message (account signup activations should be sent immediately, while a daily status report could be sent anytime each day) They manage the sending of mail and the processing of bounces Possibly, they manage opt-out/opt-in features They offer features such as DKIM, VERP, etc. If their service determines an address is undeliverable (via VERP or other means, a user unsubscribes, etc), they make a RESTful call to my web service to notify me Nice if they had some reporting features, WebBugs, link tracking, etc. What I am NOT looking for is an email marketing service that caters only to sending out copies of the same mail to masses of recipients. I need to send out unique and custom messages to individuals. I had a chat with MailChimp about using their services for sending these types of messages and they said their service does not support customized emails per recipient. Edit: I just discovered a service called JangoSMTP that appears to meet many of my requirements. It provides an API for sending mail, supports DKIM, bounce management, and even feedback loops. Unfortunately, their idea of inexpensive doesn't mesh with mine, as it would cost $180/mo to send a single daily message to my 1000 users.

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  • NRF Online Merchandising Workshop: Where Online Retailers Are Focusing for Holiday and Beyond

    - by Rose Spicer-Oracle
    0 0 1 1204 6863 Oracle Corporation 57 16 8051 14.0 Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Last month we attended the NRF Online Merchandising Workshop in LA, and it was a great opportunity to catch up with our customers, meet new retailers, and hear some great presentations from VF Corporation, Zazzle, Julep Beauty, Backcountry, eBags and more. The one-on-one conversations with Merchants and the keynote presentations carry the same themes across companies of all sizes and across verticals. With only 125 days left (and counting) until Black Friday, these conversations provided some great insight in to what’s top of mind for retailers during the most stressful time of their year, and a sneak peek in to what they will deliver this holiday season.  Some of the most popular topics were: When to start promoting for holiday: seems like a funny conversation to have in July, but a number of retailers said they already had their holiday shopping gift guides live on their site, and it was attracting a significant portion of their onsite traffic. When it comes to timing, most retailers were questioning when to begin their holiday promotions -- carefully balancing when to release pricing and specials, and knowing that customers are holding out for last-minute deals and price drops. Many retailers noted the frustrations around transparent pricing by Amazon and a few other mega-retailers last year, publishing their “lowest prices of the season” as early as October – ensuring shoppers that those prices were the best they could get all season long. Many retailers felt their hands were forced to drop prices. Others kept their set pricing with negative customer reaction, causing some to miss their holiday goals. The pressure is on, and most retailers identified November 1 as their target start date for the holiday promotions blitz. Some are even waiting for the big guys to release their “lowest prices of the season” guides and will then follow suit.      Attribution is tough – and a huge focus: understanding the path to conversion is a tough nut to crack, especially in the new omnichannel world where consumers use multiple touchpoints to make a single purchase, and internal management wants to know hard data. This has lead many retailers to invest in attribution; carefully tracking their online marketing efforts to determine what gets “credit” for the sale, instead of giving credit to the “last click.” Retailers noted that it is very difficult to determine the numbers when online and offline worlds collide – like when a shopper uses digital channels for research and then makes a purchase in a store. As one of the presenters from The North Face mentioned in her keynote, a key to enabling better customer service and satisfaction when it comes to converged online and offline sales is training the in-store staff, and creating a culture where it eventually “doesn’t matter what group gets the credit” if they all add to the sale. No doubt, the area of attribution will be a big area of retail investment in the coming years.      How to plan for the converged world: planning to ensure inventory gets where it needs to be was another concern. In conversations with retailers, we advised them to analyze customer patterns: where shoppers purchase items, where the items were sourced from and even where items are returned. This analysis is very valuable in determining inventory plans. From there, retailers can more accurately plan and allocate inventory to support both the online and offline customer behavior. As we head into the holiday season, the need for accurate enterprise-wide inventory visibility, and providing that information to associates, is even more critical to the brand-wide customer experience.       Improving the search / navigation / usability of the site(s): Aside from some of the big ideas and standard holiday pricing pressure, most conversations we had centered around continuing to improve the basics of the site. Reinvesting in search and navigation came up time and time again (FitForCommerce blogged about what a big topic it was at the event as well). Obviously getting shoppers on their path quickly and allowing them to find what they need fast is critical, but it was definitely interesting to hear just how much effort is still going in to honing the search and navigation experience. Adding new elements to search and navigation like typeahed, inventive navigation refinements, and new navigation categories like gift guides, specialized boutiques and flash sales were top of mind, in addition to searchandising and making search-driven product recommendations. (Oracle can help!)       Reducing cart abandonment: always a hot topic that is top of mind for every online retailer. Getting shoppers to the cart is often less then half the battle; getting them to click “buy” and complete the transaction is much more difficult. While retailers carefully study the checkout process and where shoppers tend to bounce, they know that how they design their checkout page is critical. We’re all online shoppers in our personal lives and we know how frustrating it can be when total prices are not transparent (i.e. shipping, processing, taxes is not included until the very last possible screen before clicking that buy button). Online retailers are struggling with where in the checkout process to surface the total price to be charged to reduce cart abandonment, while not showing the total figure too early in the process that it keeps shoppers from getting to checkout altogether. Recent research shows that providing total pricing prior to the checkout process dramatically reduces cart abandonment – as it serves as a filter to those shopping within a specific price band. Much of the cart abandonment discussion leads us to…       The free shipping / free returns question: it’s no secret that because of Amazon and programs like Prime, consumers expect free shipping, much to the chagrin of the smaller retailer. The reality is that if you’re not a mega-retailer, shipping is an expensive part of doing business that doesn’t allow most retailers to keep their prices low and offer free shipping. This has many retailers venturing out on the “free returns” path, especially in apparel. A number of retailers we spoke with are testing a flat rate shipping fee with free returns to see if they can crack the price threshold where shoppers are willing to pay for shipping with an added service. But, free shipping remains king.      Social ads and retargeting: they are working, but do they turn off consumers? That’s the big question. Every retailer we spoke with during a roundtable on the topic said that social ads and retargeting (where that pair of boots you’re been eyeing on a site magically follows you around the Internet) work and are meeting campaign goals. The larger question many retailers are asking is if this type of tactic is turning off a large number of shoppers, even if these campaigns are meeting their early goals. Retailers also mentioned that Facebook ads are working very well for them, especially when it comes to new customer acquisition, serving as a complimentary a channel to SEO when it comes to engaging new customers. While there are always new things to experiment with in retail, standard challenges are top of mind as retailers scramble to get ready for holiday. It will undoubtedly be another record-breaking online shopping season, but as retailers get more and more advanced with each Black Friday, expect some exciting things. This excitement needs to be backed by sound solutions and optimized operations. Then again, consumers are expecting more than ever, so I don’t doubt that retailers are already thinking about the possibilities of holiday 2015… and beyond. Customers who read this article, also found value in the following stories: Personalization for Retail: http://blogs.oracle.com/retail/entry/personalization_for_retailShop Direct User Experience Focus Drives Sales:https://blogs.oracle.com/retail/entry/shop_direct_user_experience_focusMaking Waves: Australian Online Retailer SurfStitch: https://blogs.oracle.com/oracleretail/entry/surf_stitchWhat’s new in Oracle Commerce v11.1 for RetailWhat the Content+Commerce Equation is Missing

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