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  • Code to simulate a users actions, such as logging in

    - by Gortron
    I've recently begun working on a PHP application, replacing another developer. I believed the application was using an API to communicate with a remote service but when I looked through the code I found that it was using a set of functions to actually log in, fill out forms and submit them as a user might do in a browser. My intention is to replace this code, to use the services API instead. I've considered leaving the code as is and not replace it. It makes me wonder though is this a common practice in the software industry? To have a programme simulate a users actions in a browser to perform a set of actions? It feels to me that this is clever but poor programming, Have any other developers seen this?

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  • Which features of user story management should an agile team look for?

    - by Sonja Dimitrijevic
    In my research study, I need to identify the key features of user story management tools that can be used to support agile development. So far, I identified the following general groups of features: User role modeling and personas support, User stories and epics management, Acceptance testing support, High-level release planning, Low-level iteration planning, and Progress tracking. Each group contains some specific features, e.g., support for story points, writing of acceptance tests, etc. Which features of user story management should an agile team look for especially when switching from tangible tools (index cards, pin boards and big visible charts) to a software tool? Are some features more important than the others? Many thanks in advance!

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  • Google Analytics Dashboard: week-by-week view

    - by Silver Dragon
    Setting up Google Analytics Dashboard allows webmasters to get a weekly progress report of marketing achievements & keep a finger on what's going on at web properties. However, by default, the dashboard always displays a day-by-day report, which isn't actionable in markets, where meaningful improvements happen on a week-by-week, or month-over-month basis. Is there any way the default view (and reports sent out via email) can be set to display week-level resolution, as opposed to day-level resolution? (ie, repro: analytics - site - Standard reports - audience - overview - right side of the window, click "weeK") Many thanks!

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  • LuaJit FFI and hiding C implementation details

    - by wirrbel
    I would like to extend an application using LuaJit FFI. Having seen http://luajit.org/ext_ffi_tutorial.html this is surprisingly easy when comparing this to the Lua C API. So far so good. However I do not plainly want to wrap C functions but provide a higher level API to users writing scripts for the application. Especially I do not want users to be able to access "primitives", i.e. the ffi.* namespace. Is this possible or will that ffi namespace be available to user's Lua scripts? On the issue of Sandboxing Lua I found http://lua-users.org/wiki/SandBoxes which is not talking about FFI though. Furthermore, the plan I have described above is assuming that the introduction of abstraction layers happens on the lua side of code. Is this an advisable approach or would you rather abstract functionality on the statically compiled code (on the C-side)?

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  • Cleaning a dataset of song data - what sort of problem is this?

    - by Rob Lourens
    I have a set of data about songs. Each entry is a line of text which includes the artist name, song title, and some extra text. Some entries are only "extra text". My goal is to resolve as many of these as possible to songs on Spotify using their web API. My strategy so far has been to search for the entry via the API - if there are no results, apply a transformation such as "remove all text between ( )" and search again. I have a list of heuristics and I've had reasonable success with this but as the code gets more and more convoluted I keep thinking there must be a more generic and consistent way. I don't know where to look - any suggestions for what to try, topics to study, buzzwords to google?

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  • Seeking advice on system documentation

    - by Shadders
    I have a rating engine (it is basically an algorithm) which when I started had no formal documentation. We have created a functional specification/decomposition which is our business level document but now I need something more technical (a technical specification). What I am struggling to understand is what that document looks like, what format it should be in and to what level of detail we should go into. We are in the process of commenting all of the code. We also have a rough document called a Blueprint which reflects the flow of the model and is written in pseudo code. Is the combination of this blueprint and the model comments sufficient as a Technical Specification?

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  • Servlet : Usage of Constants.java class vs context param

    - by Pongsakorn Semsuwan
    I'm just wondering whether to keep some of my variables in Constants class or keep it in web.xml Say, I want to keep a variable of Facebook graph API prefix or api_key, client_id From my understand, the difference between Constants.java and web.xml is web.xml is easier to rewrite on compile using ant. So, you can replace your variables in web.xml according to what environment you are building you app for. (client_id varies by development environment/production environment, for example) If I understand it right, then Facebook graph API prefix should be kept in Constants.java (because it always is "https://graph.facebook.com/") and api_key, client_id should be kept in web.xml? What's the proper way to use them?

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  • What top companies look for in an Interview?

    - by Geek
    Basically I am looking for what is it that you goof up and you are out from the remaining process ? Are elimination rounds a fair way to judge a person ? Anyone can have a bad hour :-( Should you code the best possible or should you get the Algorithm right ? I generally first code a workable solution and then work on it till a level I think it looks beautiful to me. Is this a wrong approach ? Recently I had a telephonic interview in which I was asked to write a variation of Level Order traversal in 20 minutes. I could get the Algorithm and working code in 20 minutes but couldn't get the Exception handling and the coding convention right, after which I didn't hear back from them :-( All the other questions in the interview went very well this was the only thing which was 'not upto the mark'. Needless to say I like the company and will apply again but want to get it right the next time :-) Please share your experiences and valuable suggestions.

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  • Unknown C# keywords: params

    - by Chris Skardon
    Often overlooked, and (some may say) unloved, is the params keyword, but it’s an awesome keyword, and one you should definitely check out. What does it do? Well, it lets you specify a single parameter that can have a variable number of arguments. You what? Best shown with an example, let’s say we write an add method: public int Add(int first, int second) { return first + second; } meh, it’s alright, does what it says on the tin, but it’s not exactly awe-inspiring… Oh noes! You need to add 3 things together??? public int Add(int first, int second, int third) { return first + second + third; } oh yes, you code master you! Overloading a-plenty! Now a fourth… Ok, this is starting to get a bit ridiculous, if only there was some way… public int Add(int first, int second, params int[] others) { return first + second + others.Sum(); } So now I can call this with any number of int arguments? – well, any number > 2..? Yes! int ret = Add(1, 2, 3); Is as valid as: int ret = Add(1, 2, 3, 4); Of course you probably won’t really need to ever do that method, so what could you use it for? How about adding strings together? What about a logging method? We all know ToString can be an expensive method to call, it might traverse every node on a class hierarchy, or may just be the name of the type… either way, we don’t really want to call it if we can avoid it, so how about a logging method like so: public void Log(LogLevel level, params object[] objs) { if(LoggingLevel < level) return; StringBuilder output = new StringBuilder(); foreach(var obj in objs) output.Append((obj == null) ? "null" : obj.ToString()); return output; } Now we only call ‘ToString’ when we want to, and because we’re passing in just objects we don’t have to call ToString if the Logging Level isn’t what we want… Of course, there are a multitude of things to use params for…

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  • Retail Link data storage requirements

    - by Randy Walker
    I was asked today about how much data an average Retail Link analyst (Walmart vendor) would consume.  I thought I would write this small post for future reference. Of course this vastly depends on the amount of skus, how long you want to archive data, and if you want store level sales. Most reports take up very little space. Most times when you download a report (total sales per sku for last week), you will overwrite the previous week’s report.  However, most users will take the data inside their downloaded report, and add it to a database or larger excel spreadsheet.  This way, the user has a history of the sales of each item/sku per week over the last 2+ years.  I would estimate 1 user to consume around 1-2 gb of space, at most, over the course of 2 years. If you start archiving store level sales those numbers can drastically increase up to 10gb or more very quickly.

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  • How to balance this Pokémon simulator metagame by feedback?

    - by Dokkat
    This is a Pokémon simulator where you build a team of 6 pokémon and battle with someone. Unfortunately, some Pokémon are stronger than others and only a few of the hundredth species are practical. I'm trying to create a metagame where all of them are competitive. For this, I am tagging a Pokémon with a parameter (level) that changes it's strength and scales up/down depending on the it's performance. That is, if the system detects Mewtwo is overperforming, it should decrease it's level tag until Mewtwo is balanced. The question is: how can I identify if a Pokémon is causing an unbalance? The data I have is the historic of the battles (player 1, player 2, pokémon list, winner). The most basic solution I can think of is victory/loss counting.

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  • WIFI card intel r 2200 will not work

    - by Telemarkhero
    I have installed 12.04 on a Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Pro. Wifi card does not work. Have tried various threads but none have the same problem. Think I have the correct firmware but the following comes up: gill@ubuntu:~$ iwconfig lo no wireless extensions. eth1 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:off/any Mode:Managed Channel:0 Access Point: Not-Associated Bit Rate:0 kb/s Tx-Power=off Sensitivity=8/0 Retry limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off Power Management:off Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0 Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0 eth0 no wireless extensions. Also gill@ubuntu:~$ rfkill list all 0: phy0: Wireless LAN Soft blocked: no Hard blocked: yes There is a power switch for wifi but it does not do anything in Ubuntu. Any pointers greatfully received.

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  • Is hierarchical product backlog a good idea in TFS 2012-2013?

    - by Matías Fidemraizer
    I'd like to validate I'm not in the wrong way. My team project is using Visual Studio Scrum 2.x. Since each area/product has a lot of kind of requirements (security, user interface, HTTP/REST services...), I tried to manage this creating "parent backlogs" which are "open forever" and they contain generic requirements. Those parent backlogs have other "open forever" backlogs, and/or sprint backlogs. For example: HTTP/REST Services (forever) ___ Profiles API (forever) ________ POST profile (forever) _______________ We need a basic HTTP/REST profiles' API to register new user profiles (sprint backlog) Is it the right way of organizing the product backlog? Note: I know there're different points of view and that would be right for some and wrong for others. I'm looking for validation about if this is a possible good practice on TFS with Visual Studio Scrum.

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  • GeoToolkit Demo Embedded in an Application Framework via Maven

    - by Geertjan
    As a follow on to yesterday's blog entry, here's the equivalent starter application for GeoToolkit (also known as Geotk) on the NetBeans Platform, which ends up looking like this: The above is a border.shp file I found on-line, while here's a USA states shape file rendered in the application: Note that the navigation bar is also included, though that could later be migrated into the menu bar of the NetBeans Platform.  Download the Maven based NetBeans Platform application with GeoToolkit integration here: http://java.net/projects/nb-api-samples/sources/api-samples/show/versions/7.3/tutorials/geospatial/geotoolkit/MyGeospatialSystem It was quite tricky getting this sample together, parts of it, especially the installer, which creates the database, comes from the Puzzle GIS project, while the files come from on-line locations, with the JAI-related dependencies providing problems of their own. But it's definitely a starting point and you now have the basic Maven structure needed for getting started with GeoToolkit in the context of all the services and components provided by the NetBeans Platform.  Many thanks to Johann Sorel for his patience and help. 

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  • How to Implement Project Type "Copy", "Move", "Rename", and "Delete"

    - by Geertjan
    You've followed the NetBeans Project Type Tutorial and now you'd like to let the user copy, move, rename, and delete the projects conforming to your project type. When they right-click a project, they should see the relevant menu items and those menu items should provide dialogs for user interaction, followed by event handling code to deal with the current operation. Right now, at the end of the tutorial, the "Copy" and "Delete" menu items are present but disabled, while the "Move" and "Rename" menu items are absent: The NetBeans Project API provides a built-in mechanism out of the box that you can leverage for project-level "Copy", "Move", "Rename", and "Delete" actions. All the functionality is there for you to use, while all that you need to do is a bit of enablement and configuration, which is described below. To get started, read the following from the NetBeans Project API: http://bits.netbeans.org/dev/javadoc/org-netbeans-modules-projectapi/org/netbeans/spi/project/ActionProvider.html http://bits.netbeans.org/dev/javadoc/org-netbeans-modules-projectapi/org/netbeans/spi/project/CopyOperationImplementation.html http://bits.netbeans.org/dev/javadoc/org-netbeans-modules-projectapi/org/netbeans/spi/project/MoveOrRenameOperationImplementation.html http://bits.netbeans.org/dev/javadoc/org-netbeans-modules-projectapi/org/netbeans/spi/project/DeleteOperationImplementation.html Now, let's do some work. For each of the menu items we're interested in, we need to do the following: Provide enablement and invocation handling in an ActionProvider implementation. Provide appropriate OperationImplementation classes. Add the new classes to the Project Lookup. Make the Actions visible on the Project Node. Run the application and verify the Actions work as you'd like. Here we go: Create an ActionProvider. Here you specify the Actions that should be supported, the conditions under which they should be enabled, and what should happen when they're invoked, using lots of default code that lets you reuse the functionality provided by the NetBeans Project API: class CustomerActionProvider implements ActionProvider { @Override public String[] getSupportedActions() { return new String[]{ ActionProvider.COMMAND_RENAME, ActionProvider.COMMAND_MOVE, ActionProvider.COMMAND_COPY, ActionProvider.COMMAND_DELETE }; } @Override public void invokeAction(String string, Lookup lkp) throws IllegalArgumentException { if (string.equalsIgnoreCase(ActionProvider.COMMAND_RENAME)) { DefaultProjectOperations.performDefaultRenameOperation( CustomerProject.this, ""); } if (string.equalsIgnoreCase(ActionProvider.COMMAND_MOVE)) { DefaultProjectOperations.performDefaultMoveOperation( CustomerProject.this); } if (string.equalsIgnoreCase(ActionProvider.COMMAND_COPY)) { DefaultProjectOperations.performDefaultCopyOperation( CustomerProject.this); } if (string.equalsIgnoreCase(ActionProvider.COMMAND_DELETE)) { DefaultProjectOperations.performDefaultDeleteOperation( CustomerProject.this); } } @Override public boolean isActionEnabled(String command, Lookup lookup) throws IllegalArgumentException { if ((command.equals(ActionProvider.COMMAND_RENAME))) { return true; } else if ((command.equals(ActionProvider.COMMAND_MOVE))) { return true; } else if ((command.equals(ActionProvider.COMMAND_COPY))) { return true; } else if ((command.equals(ActionProvider.COMMAND_DELETE))) { return true; } return false; } } Importantly, to round off this step, add "new CustomerActionProvider()" to the "getLookup" method of the project. If you were to run the application right now, all the Actions we're interested in would be enabled (if they are visible, as described in step 4 below) but when you invoke any of them you'd get an error message because each of the DefaultProjectOperations above looks in the Lookup of the Project for the presence of an implementation of a class for handling the operation. That's what we're going to do in the next step. Provide Implementations of Project Operations. For each of our operations, the NetBeans Project API lets you implement classes to handle the operation. The dialogs for interacting with the project are provided by the NetBeans project system, but what happens with the folders and files during the operation can be influenced via the operations. Below are the simplest possible implementations, i.e., here we assume we want nothing special to happen. Each of the below needs to be in the Lookup of the Project in order for the operation invocation to succeed. private final class CustomerProjectMoveOrRenameOperation implements MoveOrRenameOperationImplementation { @Override public List<FileObject> getMetadataFiles() { return new ArrayList<FileObject>(); } @Override public List<FileObject> getDataFiles() { return new ArrayList<FileObject>(); } @Override public void notifyRenaming() throws IOException { } @Override public void notifyRenamed(String nueName) throws IOException { } @Override public void notifyMoving() throws IOException { } @Override public void notifyMoved(Project original, File originalPath, String nueName) throws IOException { } } private final class CustomerProjectCopyOperation implements CopyOperationImplementation { @Override public List<FileObject> getMetadataFiles() { return new ArrayList<FileObject>(); } @Override public List<FileObject> getDataFiles() { return new ArrayList<FileObject>(); } @Override public void notifyCopying() throws IOException { } @Override public void notifyCopied(Project prjct, File file, String string) throws IOException { } } private final class CustomerProjectDeleteOperation implements DeleteOperationImplementation { @Override public List<FileObject> getMetadataFiles() { return new ArrayList<FileObject>(); } @Override public List<FileObject> getDataFiles() { return new ArrayList<FileObject>(); } @Override public void notifyDeleting() throws IOException { } @Override public void notifyDeleted() throws IOException { } } Also make sure to put the above methods into the Project Lookup. Check the Lookup of the Project. The "getLookup()" method of the project should now include the classes you created above, as shown in bold below: @Override public Lookup getLookup() { if (lkp == null) { lkp = Lookups.fixed(new Object[]{ this, new Info(), new CustomerProjectLogicalView(this), new CustomerCustomizerProvider(this), new CustomerActionProvider(), new CustomerProjectMoveOrRenameOperation(), new CustomerProjectCopyOperation(), new CustomerProjectDeleteOperation(), new ReportsSubprojectProvider(this), }); } return lkp; } Make Actions Visible on the Project Node. The NetBeans Project API gives you a number of CommonProjectActions, including for the actions we're dealing with. Make sure the items in bold below are in the "getActions" method of the project node: @Override public Action[] getActions(boolean arg0) { return new Action[]{ CommonProjectActions.newFileAction(), CommonProjectActions.copyProjectAction(), CommonProjectActions.moveProjectAction(), CommonProjectActions.renameProjectAction(), CommonProjectActions.deleteProjectAction(), CommonProjectActions.customizeProjectAction(), CommonProjectActions.closeProjectAction() }; } Run the Application. When you run the application, you should see this: Let's now try out the various actions: Copy. When you invoke the Copy action, you'll see the dialog below. Provide a new project name and location and then the copy action is performed when the Copy button is clicked below: The message you see above, in red, might not be relevant to your project type. When you right-click the application and choose Branding, you can find the string in the Resource Bundles tab, as shown below: However, note that the message will be shown in red, no matter what the text is, hence you can really only put something like a warning message there. If you have no text at all, it will also look odd.If the project has subprojects, the copy operation will not automatically copy the subprojects. Take a look here and here for similar more complex scenarios. Move. When you invoke the Move action, the dialog below is shown: Rename. The Rename Project dialog below is shown when you invoke the Rename action: I tried it and both the display name and the folder on disk are changed. Delete. When you invoke the Delete action, you'll see this dialog: The checkbox is not checkable, in the default scenario, and when the dialog above is confirmed, the project is simply closed, i.e., the node hierarchy is removed from the application. However, if you truly want to let the user delete the project on disk, pass the Project to the DeleteOperationImplementation and then add the children of the Project you want to delete to the getDataFiles method: private final class CustomerProjectDeleteOperation implements DeleteOperationImplementation { private final CustomerProject project; private CustomerProjectDeleteOperation(CustomerProject project) { this.project = project; } @Override public List<FileObject> getDataFiles() { List<FileObject> files = new ArrayList<FileObject>(); FileObject[] projectChildren = project.getProjectDirectory().getChildren(); for (FileObject fileObject : projectChildren) { addFile(project.getProjectDirectory(), fileObject.getNameExt(), files); } return files; } private void addFile(FileObject projectDirectory, String fileName, List<FileObject> result) { FileObject file = projectDirectory.getFileObject(fileName); if (file != null) { result.add(file); } } @Override public List<FileObject> getMetadataFiles() { return new ArrayList<FileObject>(); } @Override public void notifyDeleting() throws IOException { } @Override public void notifyDeleted() throws IOException { } } Now the user will be able to check the checkbox, causing the method above to be called in the DeleteOperationImplementation: Hope this answers some questions or at least gets the discussion started. Before asking questions about this topic, please take the steps above and only then attempt to apply them to your own scenario. Useful implementations to look at: http://kickjava.com/src/org/netbeans/modules/j2ee/clientproject/AppClientProjectOperations.java.htm https://kenai.com/projects/nbandroid/sources/mercurial/content/project/src/org/netbeans/modules/android/project/AndroidProjectOperations.java

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  • "Super meatboy"-ish replay

    - by Ron
    I'm making a platformer built from mini-levels - and I want to create a sort of a replay of all the player tries that the player did for the level. My question is - what is the best way to record the player's actions in-game, so that I could replay them later when he finishes the level. I thought about recording only the player's input and replay them later on, each on a clone of the player. The problem I have with this is with dynamic obstacles (that could be moved around) - if one clone moves them, it throws the simulation off for the rest of the clones. So then I thought about recording every frame the X/Y of the player, and then just replay it - but that seems it could cause a major memory leak and very ineffective. So - does anyone have any ideas? :)

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  • exact point oh a rotating sphere

    - by nkint
    I have a sphere that represents the heart textured with real pictures. It's rotating about the x axis, and when user click down it has to show me the exact place he clicked on. For example if he clicked on Singapore and the system should be able to: understand that user clicked on the sphere (OK, I'll do it with unProject) understand where user clicked on the sphere (ray-sphere collision?) and take into account the rotation transform sphere-coordinate to some coordinate system good for some web-api service ask to api (OK, this is the simpler thing for me ;-) some advice?

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  • A solution for a PHP website without a framework

    - by lortabac
    One of our customers asked us to add some dynamic functionality to an existent website, made of several static HTML pages. We normally work with an MVC framework (mostly CodeIgniter), but in this case moving everything to a framework would require too much time. Since it is not a big project, not having the full functionality of a framework is not a problem. But the question is how to keep code clean. The solution I came up with is to divide code in libraries (the application's API) and models. So inside HTML there will only be API calls, and readability will not be sacrificed. I implemented this with a sort of static Registry (sorry if I'm wrong, I am not a design pattern expert): <?php class Custom_framework { //Global database instance private static $db; //Registered models private static $models = array(); //Registered libraries private static $libraries = array(); //Returns a database class instance static public function get_db(){ if(isset(self::$db)){ //If instance exists, returns it return self::$db; } else { //If instance doesn't exists, creates it self::$db = new DB; return self::$db; } } //Returns a model instance static public function get_model($model_name){ if(isset(self::$models[$model_name])){ //If instance exists, returns it return self::$models[$model_name]; } else { //If instance doesn't exists, creates it if(is_file(ROOT_DIR . 'application/models/' . $model_name . '.php')){ include_once ROOT_DIR . 'application/models/' . $model_name . '.php'; self::$models[$model_name] = new $model_name; return self::$models[$model_name]; } else { return FALSE; } } } //Returns a library instance static public function get_library($library_name){ if(isset(self::$libraries[$library_name])){ //If instance exists, returns it return self::$libraries[$library_name]; } else { //If instance doesn't exists, creates it if(is_file(ROOT_DIR . 'application/libraries/' . $library_name . '.php')){ include_once ROOT_DIR . 'application/libraries/' . $library_name . '.php'; self::$libraries[$library_name] = new $library_name; return self::$libraries[$library_name]; } else { return FALSE; } } } } Inside HTML, API methods are accessed like this: <?php echo Custom_framework::get_library('My_library')->my_method(); ?> It looks to me as a practical solution. But I wonder what its drawbacks are, and what the possible alternatives.

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  • Developing a computer system based on Nand2Tetris [on hold]

    - by Ryan
    I recently finished a book called Nand2Tetris (nand2tetris.org) where I built my own computer system from scratch with its own machine language, assembly code, and a high level language called Jack that's translated to Hack binary. However, I feel like the "computer" I built throughout the course of this book (called the Hack computer) is a bit too simple for various reasons: 1) There are only two registers (D and A), whereas most computers have much more 2) Peripheral devices like mouse and keyboard have to be directly implemented 3) Peripheral devices use a pre-planned shared memory map to communicate with the CPU instead of using interrupts (which aren't covered at all) 4) Jack (the high level language) code doesn't compile to Assembly code directly, instead it compiles to an intermediate language, which in turn gets translated to Assembly. 5) There is no ROM or permanent storage device, everything is stored in RAM 6) No support for colored monitor, networking or sound I would like to build a more complicated computer system now based on what I've learned from Nand2Tetris. Does anyone know of any good resources or books to get started on this? (BTW by computer system I mean software that can emulate the hardware of a virtual computer with its own unique instruction set)

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  • Learning the basics

    - by Kevin
    I am a Linux server administrator first and foremost... Having said that, I have been asked by a former high school teacher of mine to teach students a bit about programming. Like any Linux administrator, I know my fair share of Python and Bash. The problem is that I know NOTHING about the lower level stuff like "machine code" and compilation. The main purpose of this series is to teach programming, not computer science, so I don't need a graduate degree's level of knowledge for this, they will be learning Python first and foremost. However, I would like to learn enough to at least broach the subject with them, any ideas where I can learn that kind of stuff relatively quickly?

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  • Session Evaluations

    - by BuckWoody
    I do a lot of public speaking. I write, teach, present and communicate at many levels. I love to do those things. And I love to get better at them. And one of the ways you get better at something is to get feedback on how you did. That being said, I have to confess that I really despise the “evaluations” I get at most venues. From college to technical events to other locations, at Microsoft and points in between, I find these things to be just shy of damaging, and most certainly useless. And it’s not always your fault. Ouch. That seems harsh. But let me ask you one question – and be as honest as you can with the answer – think about it first: “What is the point of a session evaluation?” I’m not saying there isn’t one. In fact, I think there’s a really important reason for them. In my mind, it’s really this: To make the speaker / next session better. Now, if you look at that, you can see right away that most session evals don’t accomplish this goal – not even a little. No, the way that they are worded and the way you (and I) fill them out, it’s more like the implied goal is this: Tell us how you liked this speaker / session. The current ones are for you, not for the speaker or the next person. It’s a popularity contest. Don’t get me wrong. I want to you have a good time. I want you to learn. I want (desperately, oh, please oh please) for you to like me. But in fact, that’s probably not why you went to the session / took the class / read that post. No, you want to learn, and to learn for a particular reason. Remember, I’m talking about college classes, sessions and other class environments here, not a general public event. Most – OK, all – session evaluations make you answer the second goal, not the first. Let’s see how: First, they don’t ask you why you’re there. They don’t ask you if you’re even qualified to evaluate the session or speaker. They don’t ask you how to make it better or keep it great. They use odd numeric scales that are meaningless. For instance, can someone really tell me the difference between a 100-level session and a 200-level one? Between a 400-level and a 500? Is it “internals” (whatever that means) or detail, or length or code, or what? I once heard a great description: A 100-level session makes me say, “wow - I’m smart.” A 500-level session makes me say “wow – that presenter is smart.” And just what is the difference between a 6 and a 7 answer on this question: How well did the speaker know the material? 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10 Oh. My. Gosh. How does that make the next session better, or the speaker? And what criteria did you use to answer? And is a “10” better than a “1” (not always clear, and various cultures answer this differently). When it’s all said and done, a speaker basically finds out one thing from the current session evals: “They liked me. They really really liked me.” Or, “Wow. I think I may need to schedule some counseling for the depression I’m about to go into.” You may not think that’s what the speaker hears, but trust me, they do. Those are the only two reactions to the current feedback sheets they get. Either they keep doing what they are doing, or they get their feelings hurt. They just can’t use the information provided to do better. Sorry, but there it is. Keep in mind I do want your feedback. I want to get better. I want you to get your money and time’s worth, probably as much as any speaker alive. But I want those evaluations to be accurate, specific and actionable. I want to know if you had a good time, sure, but I also want to know if I did the right things, and if not, if I can do something different or better. And so, for your consideration, here is the evaluation form I would LOVE for you to use. Feel free to copy it and mail it to me any time. I’m going to put some questions here, and then I’ll even include why they are there. Notice that the form asks you a subjective question right away, and then makes you explain why. That’s work on your part. Notice also that it separates the room and the coffee and the lights and the LiveMeeting from the presenter. So many presenters are faced with circumstances beyond their control, and yet are rated high or low personally on those things. This form helps tease those apart. It’s not numeric. Numbers are easier for the scoring committees but are useless for you and me. So I don’t have any numbers. We’re actually going to have to read these things, not put them in a machine. Hey, if you put in the work to write stuff down, the least we could do is take the time to read it. It’s not anonymous. If you’ve got something to say, say it, and own up to it. People are not “more honest” when they are anonymous, they are less honest. So put your name on it. In fact – this is radical – I posit that these evaluations should be publicly available. Forever. Just like replies to a blog post. Hey, if I’m an organizer, I would LOVE to be able to have access to specific, actionable information on the attendees and the speakers. So if you want mine to be public, go for it. I’ll take the good and the bad. Enjoy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Session Evaluation – Date, Time, Location, Topic Thanks for giving us your time today. We know that’s valuable, and we hope you learned something you can use from the session. If you can answer these questions as completely as you can, it will help the next person who attends a session here. Your Name: What you do for a living: (We Need your background to evaluate your evaluation) How long you have been doing that: (Again, we need your background to evaluate your evaluation) Paste Session Description Here: (This is what I said I would talk about) Did you like the session?                     No        Meh        Yes (General subjective question – overall “feeling”. You’ll tell us why in a minute.)  Tell us about the venue. Temperature, lights, coffee, or the online sound, performance, anything other than the speaker and the material. (Helps the logistics to be better or as good for the next person) 1. What did you expect to learn in this session? (How did you interpret that extract – did you have expectations that I should work towards for the next person?) 2. Did you learn what you expected to learn? Why? Be very specific. (This is the most important question there is. It tells us how to make the session better for someone like you.) 3. If you were giving this presentation, would you have done anything differently? What? (Helps us to gauge you, the listener, and might give us a great idea on how to do something better. Thanks!) 4. What will you do with the information you got? (Every presenter wants you to learn, and learn something useful. This will help us do that as well or better)  

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  • Seven Accounting Changes for 2010

    - by Theresa Hickman
    I read a very interesting article called Seven Accounting Changes That Will Affect Your 2010 Annual Report from SmartPros that nicely summarized how 2010 annual financial statements will be impacted.  Here’s a Reader’s Digest version of the changes: 1.  Changes to revenue recognition if you sell bundled products with multiple deliverables: Old Rule: You needed to objectively establish the “fair value” of each bundled item. So if you sold a dishwasher plus installation and could not establish the fair value of the installation, you might have to delay recognizing revenue of the dishwasher days or weeks later until it was installed. New Rule (ASU 2009-13): “Objective” proof of each service or good is no longer required; you can simply estimate the selling price of the installation and warranty. So the dishwasher vendor can recognize the dishwasher revenue immediately at the point of sale without waiting a few weeks for the installation. Then they can recognize the estimated value of the installation after it is complete. 2.  Changes to revenue recognition for devices with embedded software: Old Rule: Hardware devices with embedded software, such as the iPhone, had to follow stringent software revrec rules. This forced Apple to recognize iPhone revenues over two years, the period of time that software updates were provided. New Rule (ASU 2009-14): Software revrec rules no longer apply to these devices with embedded software; these devices can now follow ASU 2009-13. This allows vendors, such as Apple, to recognize revenue sooner. 3.  Fair value disclosures: Companies (both public and private) now need to spend extra time gathering, summarizing, and disclosing information about items measured at fair value, such as significant transfers in and out of Level 1(quoted market price), Level 2 (valuation based on observable markets), and Level 3 (valuations based on internal information). 4.  Consolidation of variable interest entities (a.k.a special purpose entities): Consolidation rules for variable interest entities now require a qualitative, not quantitative, analysis to determine the primary beneficiary. Instead of simply looking at the percentage of voting interests, the primary beneficiary could have less than the majority interests as long as it has the power to direct the activities and absorb any losses.  5.  XBRL: Starting in June 2011, all U.S. public companies are required to file financial statements to the SEC using XBRL. Note: Oracle supports XBRL reporting. 6.  Non-GAAP financial disclosures: Companies that report non-GAAP measures of performance, such as EBITDA in SEC filings, have more flexibility.  The new interpretations can be found here: http://www.sec.gov/divisions/corpfin/guidance/nongaapinterp.htm.  7.  Loss contingencies disclosures: Companies should expect additional scrutiny of their loss disclosures, such as those from litigation losses, in their annual financial statements. The SEC wants more disclosures about loss contingencies sooner instead of after the cases are settled.

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  • Oracle BPM and Open Data integration development

    - by drrwebber
    Rapidly developing Oracle BPM application solutions with data source integration previously required significant Java and JDeveloper skills. Now using open source tools for open data development significantly reduces the coding needed.  Key tasks can be performed with visual drag and drop designing combined with menu selections entry and automatic form generation directly from XSD schema definitions. The architecture used is extremely lightweight, portable, open platform and scalable allowing integration with a variety of Oracle and non-Oracle data sources and systems. Two videos available on YouTube walk through the process at both an introductory conceptual level and then a deep dive into the programming needed using JDeveloper, Oracle BPM composer and Oracle WLS (WebLogic Server) along with the CAM editor and Open-XDX open source tools. Also available are coding samples and resources from the GitHub project page, along with working online demonstration resources on the VerifyXML site. Combining Oracle BPM with these open source tools provides a comprehensive simple and elegant solution set. Development times are slashed and rapid prototyping is enabled. Also existing data sources can be integrated using open data formats with either XML or JSON along with CRUD accessing via the Open-XDX Java component. The Open-XDX tool is a code-free approach where data mapping is configured as templates using visual drag and drop in the CAM Editor open source tool.  XML or JSON is then automatically generated or processed (output or input) and appropriate SQL statements created to support the data accessing.   Also included is the ability to integrate with fillable PDF forms via the XML templates and the Java PDF form filling library.  Again minimal Java coding is needed to associate the XML source content with the PDF named fields.  The Oracle BPM forms can be automatically generated from XSD schema definitions that are built from the data mapping templates.  This dramatically simplifies development work as all the integration artifacts needed are created by the open source editor toolset. The developer level video is designed as a tutorial with segments, hands-on demonstrations and reviews.  This allows developers to learn the techniques and approaches used in incremental steps. The intended audience ranges from data analysts to developers and assumes only entry level Java skills and knowledge.  Most actions are menu driven while Java coding is limited to simply configuring values and parameters along with performing builds and deployments from JDeveloper and Oracle WLS.   Additional existing Oracle online training resources can be referenced on Oracle BPM and WLS that cover other normal delivery aspects such as user management and application deployment.

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  • Styling Windows Phone Silverlight Applications

    - by Tim Murphy
    If you have not developed with styles in Silverlight/XAML then it can be challenging and resources can be sparse depending on how deep you get.  One thing that you need to understand is what level you can apply styles and how much they can cascade.  What I am finding is that this doesn’t go to the level that we are used to in HTML and CSS. While styles can be defined at a page level if you want to share styles throughout your application they should be defined in the App.xaml file.  This is of course analogous to placing a style in your HTML file versus an external CSS file.  This is the type of style I will concentrate on in this post. The first thing to look it how styles associate to elements.  TargetType defines the object type that your style will apply to.  In the example below the style is targeting the TextBlock object type. <Style x:Key="TextBlockSmallGray" TargetType="TextBlock"> Next we use a Setter which allows you to apply values for specific attributes of the target object type.  The setters can be a simple value or complex.  The first example here is simply applying a color to the background property of the target. <Setter Property="Background" Value="White"/> The second setter example here is for the same property, but we are applying a the definition of a LinearGradientBrush. <Setter Property="Background"> <Setter.Value> <LinearGradientBrush> <GradientStop Offset="0" Color="Black"/> <GradientStop Offset="1" Color="White"/> </LinearGradientBrush> </Setter.Value> </Setter> The last thing I want to cover here is that you can leverage the system styles and then override or extend them.  The BasedOn attribute of the Style tag allows this sort of inheritance.  In the example below I am going to start with the PhoneTextTitleStyle and then override properties as needed. <Style x:Key="TextBlockTitle" BasedOn="{StaticResource PhoneTextTitle1Style}" TargetType="TextBlock"> So now that we have our styles defined applying it is fairly straight forward.  Add the style name as a static resource to the style property of the element in your page and off you go. <Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" Style="{StaticResource PageGridStyle}"> So this is one step in creating consistency in your application’s look.  In future posts I will dig a little deeper. del.icio.us Tags: windows phone 7,mobile development,windows phone 7 development,.NET,software development,design,UX

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  • What causes the iOS OpenGLES driver to allocate extra memory?

    - by Martin Linklater
    I'm trying to optimize the memory usage of our iOS game and I'm puzzled about when/why the iOS GLES driver allocates extra memory at runtime... When I run our game through Instruments with the OpenGL ES Driver instrument the gartUsedBytes value can fluctuate quite wildly. We preload all our textures and build the buffer objects up front, so it's not the game engine requesting extra memory from GL. Currently we are manually requesting around 50MB of GL memory, yet the gartUsedBytes value sits at around 90MB most of the time, peaking at 125MB from time to time. It seems to be linked to what you are rendering that frame - our PVS only submits VBO's for visible meshes. Can anyone shed some light on what the driver is doing in the background ? Like I said earlier, all our game engine allocations are done on level load, so in theory there shouldn't be any fluctuation on GL memory usage while the level is running. Thanks.

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