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• Oracle is #1 in Life Sciences!

  - by Michael Snow

  Guest post today by: John Klinke, Senior Principal Product Manager, Oracle WebCenter Content 12.00 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE 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-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Based on the announcement last week at EMC World about Documentum for Life Sciences, it looks like EMC is starting to have regrets about pulling out of the life sciences space over the last few years. Certainly their content management customers and partners in life sciences have noticed their retreat. Many of them are now talking to us about WebCenter Content since they’ve seen the writing on the wall regarding Documentum’s decline, including falling revenue, shrinking investment, departure of key executives, and EMC’s auditing of existing customers. While EMC has been neglecting the life sciences industry over the last few years, Oracle has been increasing its investment and commitment by providing best-of-breed solutions to enable pharmaceutical, medical device, biotech and CRO companies to improve productivity and drive innovation. As a result, according to IDC Health Insights, Oracle is #1 in life sciences. From research and development through clinical development and manufacturing to sales and marketing, Oracle provides the solutions that life sciences companies depend on to accelerate R&D, expedite clinical trials, and speed time to market. Specifically for Oracle WebCenter, our life sciences business is booming thanks to our comprehensive offerings led by Oracle WebCenter Content, our 21 CFR Part 11 compliant enterprise content management platform. Unlike Documentum, WebCenter Content is all about keeping the cost of ownership low - through simplicity, flexibility, and out-of-the-box integrations. WebCenter Content is a single, comprehensive ECM platform that can handle all your content management needs, from controlled documents to digital asset management, records management and document imaging and capture. And it is much more flexible, letting you do configuration changes instead of customizations to meet your business needs. It also saves you money by being pre-integrated with the rest of the Oracle Fusion Middleware technology stack and with leading enterprise applications like Siebel (including Siebel CTMS), Primavera, E-Business Suite, JD Edwards and PeopleSoft. So if you think EMC’s announcement last week was too little and too late, I’m happy to report that Oracle is here to help. Back in October, we announced our Move Off Documentum offer, which provides a 100% trade-in credit for your Documentum licenses when you purchase Oracle WebCenter, and the good news is, this offer is still available for a limited time. So stop maintaining Documentum and start innovating with Oracle WebCenter. For more details see www.oracle.com/moveoff/documentum.

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• 65536% Autogrowth!

  - by Tara Kizer

  Twice a year, we move our production systems to our disaster recovery site.  Last Saturday night was one of those days.  There are about 50 SQL Server databases to be moved to the DR site, which is done via database mirroring.  It takes only a few seconds to failover, but some databases have a bit more involved work such as setting up replication.  Everything went relatively smooth, but we encountered a weird bug on our most mission critical system.  After everything was successfully failed over to the DR site, it was noticed that mirroring was in a suspended state on one of the databases.  We thought we had run into a SQL Server 2005 bug that we had been encountering and were working with Microsoft on a fix.  Microsoft did fix it in both SQL Server 2005 service pack 3 cumulative update package 13 and service pack 4 cumulative update package 2, however SP3 CU13 and SP4 both recently failed on this system so we were not patched yet with the bug fix.  As the suspended state was causing us issues with replication, we dropped mirroring.  We then noticed we had 10MB of free disk space on the mount point where the principal’s data files are stored.  I knew something went amiss as this system should have at least 150GB free on that mount point.  I immediately checked the main database’s data file and was shocked to see an autgrowth size of 65536%.  The data file autogrew right before mirroring went into the suspended state. 65536%! I didn’t have a lot of time to research if this autgrowth problem was a known SQL Server bug, so I deferred that research to today.  A quick Google search yielded no results but emphasis on “quick”.  I checked our performance system, which was recently restored with a copy of the affected production database, and found the autogrowth setting to be 512MB.  So this autogrowth bug was encountered sometime in the last two weeks.  On February 26th, we had attempted to install SQL 2005 SP4 on production, however it had failed (PSS case open with Microsoft).  I suspected that the SP4 failure was somehow related to this autgrowth bug although that turned out not to be the case. I then tweeted (@TaraKizer) about this problem to see if the SQL Server community (#sqlhelp) had any insights.  It seems several people have either heard of this bug or encountered it.  Aaron Bertrand (blog|twitter) referred me to this Connect item. Our affected database originated on SQL Server 2000 and was upgraded to SQL Server 2005 in 2007.  Back on SQL Server 2000, we were using the default file growth setting which was a percentage.  Sometime after the 2005 upgrade is when we changed it to 512MB.  Our situation seemed to fit the bug Aaron referred to me, so now the question was whether Microsoft had fixed it yet. I received a reply to my tweet from Amit Banerjee (twitter) that it had been fixed in SP3 CU1 (KB958004).  My affected system is SP3 CU8, so I was initially confused why we had encountered the bug.  Because I don’t read things fully, I had missed that there are additional steps you have to follow after applying the bug fix.  Amit set me straight.  Although you can read this information in the KB article, I will also copy it here in case you are as lazy as me and miss the most important section of it (although if you are as lazy as me, you won’t have read this far down my blog post): This hotfix will prevent only future occurrences of this problem. For example, if you restore a database from SQL Server 2000 to a SQL Server 2005 instance that contains this hotfix, this problem will not occur. However, if you already have a database that is affected by this problem, you must follow these steps to resolve this problem manually: Apply this hotfix. Set the file growth settings for the affected files to percentage settings, and then set the settings back to megabyte settings. Take the database offline, and then bring it back online. Verify that the values of the is_percent_growth column are correct in the sys.database_files system table and in the sys.master_files system table.

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• How does the Trash Can work, and where can I find official documentation, reference, or specification for it?

  - by MestreLion

  When trying to manage trash can from mounted NTFS volumes, I ended up reading FreeDesktop.org's reference on it. Poking around and doing some tests, I realized Ubuntu/Gnome does not follow the specs 100%. Here's why: For non-/ partitions, it always uses <driveroot>/.Trash-<uid>, It never used <driveroot>/.Trash/<uid>, even when i created it in advance. While this works, it's annoying: if I have 15 users, I end up with 15 /.Trash-xxx folders in my drive, while the other approach would still give a single folder (with 15 sub-folders). That "pollution" in my drives is very unpleasant. And specs say "If an $topdir/.Trash directory is absent, an $topdir/.Trash-$uid directory is to be used". Well, it IS present, so why does it never use it? root trash does not work, at least not out of the box. Open nautilus as root and click on trash; it gives an error. Try to delete any file, it says "it can't move to trash". Ok, I know this can be fixed by creating /root/.local/share. But specs says "A “home trash” directory SHOULD be automatically created for any new user. If this directory is needed for a trashing operation but does not exist, the implementation SHOULD automatically create it, without any warnings or delays.". Why the error then? Bug? Why must I change /etc/fstab entries for mounted volumes, adding options like uid and guid, if the volumes are already mounted as RW for everyone? These are just some examples of deviation from the standard. So, the question is: "If Ubuntu does not adhere 100% to the spec, HOW exactly does the trash work? WHERE can i find a technical reference for Ubuntu's implementation of the trash?" By the way: if Ubuntu does happen to follow specs, please tell me what I am doing wrong, especially regarding the /.Trash-<uid> vs /.Trash/<uid> issue. Thanks! EDIT: Some more info: If a given fs has no support for the sticky bit (VFAT, NTFS), it probably doesn't have for permissions either (at least VFAT surely doesn't). So what prevents one user from purging / restoring other users' ./Trash-xxx ? If one can read/write his own Trash, one can do the same for the whole drive, including other's trashes, correct? Or does Gnome have some kind of "extra" protection on ./Trash-xxx folders on VFAT/NTFS fs? If Linux can "emulate" file permissions on NTFS mounting by editing /fstab uid and gid options, can it also "emulate" the sticky bit? I would really prefer to use /.Trash/xxx format... For the root issue: for the / partition, I can use trash as root, and it goes to /root/.local/shate/Trash. But if I click on Nautilus "Trash" (as root), I get an error. Don't you? So files are correctly trashed, but I can't access it. All I can do is manually "purge" them (by deleting files on /root/.local/shate/Trash), but restoring would be very tricky (opening info files and manually moving, etc.). For non-/ partitions (or at least for VFAT/NTFS), I can not even use trash as root: it does not create a ./Trash-0 folder, it simply says "Cannot trash, want to permanently delete?" Why? About fstab: i use it for a permanent mount for my NTFS partitions. I have several, and if not "pre-mounted" they really clutter the desktop and/or Nautilus. I'd rather have it pre-mounted, integrated in my fs, in mounts like /data , /windows/xp , /windows/vista , and so on, and leave /media and its "mount/unmount" flexibility just for truly removable drives. So, if Ubuntu/Gnome truly follows the spec, is there any way to fix the root issues and to "emulate" the sticky bit for (at least) my fstab'ed NTFS fixed partitions?

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• Weird SSIS Configuration Error

  - by Christopher House

  I ran into an interesting SSIS issue that I thought I'd share in hopes that it may save someone from bruising their head after repeatedly banging it on the desk like I did.  I was trying to setup what I believe is referred to as "indirect configuration" in SSIS.  This is where you store your configuration in some repository like a database or a file, then store the location of that repository in an environment variable and use that to configure the connection to your configuration repository.  In my specific situation, I was using a SQL database.  I had this all working, but for reasons I'll not bore you with, I had to move my SSIS development to a new VM last week.  When I got my new VM, I set about creating a new package.  I finished up development on the package and started setting up configuration.  I created an OLE DB connection that pointed to my configuration table then went through the configuration wizard to have the connection string for this connection set through my environment variable.  I then went through the wizard to set another property through a value stored in the configuration table.  When I got to the point where you select the connection, my connection wasn't in the list: As you can see in the screen capture above, the ConfigurationDb connection isn't in the list of available SQL connections in the configuration wizard.  Strange.  I canceled out of the wizard, went to the properties for ConfigurationDb, tested the connection and it was successful.  I went back to the wizard again and this time ConfigurationDb was there.  I completed the wizard then went to test my package.  Unfortunately the package wouldn't run, I got the following error: Unfortunately, googling for this error code didn't help much as none of the results appears related to package configuration.  I did notice that when I went back through the package configuration and tried to edit a previously saved config entry,  I was getting the following error: I checked the connection string I had stored in my environment variable and noticed that indeed, it did not have a provider name.  I didn't recall having included one on my previous VM, but I figured I'd include it just to see what happened.  That made no difference at all.  After a day and a half of trying to figure out what the problem was, I'm pleased to report that through extensive trial and error, I have resolved the error. As it turns out, the person who setup this new VM for me named the server SQLSERVER2008.  This meant my configuration connection string was: Initial Catalog=SSISConfigDb;Data Source=SQLSERVER2008;Integrated Security=SSPI; Just for the heck of it, I tried changing it to: Initial Catalog=SSISConfigDb;Data Source=(local);Integrated Security=SSPI; That did the trick!  As soon as I restarted BIDS, I was able to run the package with no errors at all.  Crazy.  So, the moral of the story is, don't name your server SQLSERVER2008 if you want SSIS configuration to work when using SQL as your config store.

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• Java EE @ No Fluff Just Stuff Tour

  - by reza_rahman

  If you work in the US and still don't know what the No Fluff Just Stuff (NFJS) Tour is, you are doing yourself a very serious disfavor. NFJS is by far the cheapest and most effective way to stay up to date through some world class speakers and talks. This is most certainly true for US enterprise Java developers in particular. Following the US cultural tradition of old-fashioned roadshows, NFJS is basically a set program of speakers and topics offered at major US cities year round. Many now famous world class technology speakers can trace their humble roots to NFJS. Via NFJS you basically get to have amazing training without paying for an expensive venue, lodging or travel. The events are usually on the weekends so you don't need to even skip work if you want (a great feature for consultants on tight budgets and deadlines). I am proud to share with you that I recently joined the NFJS troupe. My hope is that this will help solve the lingering problem of effectively spreading the Java EE message here in the US. For NFJS I hope my joining will help beef up perhaps much desired Java content. In any case, simply being accepted into this legendary program is an honor I could have perhaps only dreamed of a few years ago. I am very grateful to Jay Zimmerman for seeing the value in me and the Java EE content. The current speaker line-up consists of the likes of Neal Ford, Venkat Subramaniam, Nathaniel Schutta, Tim Berglund and many other great speakers. I actually had my tour debut on April 4-5 with the NFJS New York Software Symposium - basically a short train commute away from my home office. The show is traditionally one of the smaller ones and it was not that bad for a start. I look forward to doing a few more in the coming months (more on that a bit later). I had four talks back to back (really my most favorite four at the moment). The first one was a talk on JMS 2 - some of you might already know JMS is one of my most favored Java EE APIs. The slides for the talk are posted below: What’s New in Java Message Service 2 from Reza Rahman The next talk I delivered was my Cargo Tracker/Java EE + DDD talk. This talk basically overviews DDD and describes how DDD maps to Java EE using code examples/demos from the Cargo Tracker Java EE Blue Prints project. Applied Domain-Driven Design Blue Prints for Java EE from Reza Rahman The third talk I delivered was our flagship Java EE 7/8 talk. As you may know, currently the talk is basically about Java EE 7. I'll probably slowly evolve this talk to gradually transform it into a Java EE 8 talk as we move forward (I'll blog about that separately shortly). The following is the slide deck for the talk: JavaEE.Next(): Java EE 7, 8, and Beyond from Reza Rahman My last talk for the show was my JavaScript+Java EE 7 talk. This talk is basically about aligning EE 7 with the emerging JavaScript ecosystem (specifically AngularJS). The slide deck for the talk is here: JavaScript/HTML5 Rich Clients Using Java EE 7 from Reza Rahman Unsurprisingly this talk was well-attended. The demo application code is posted on GitHub. The code should be a helpful resource if this development model is something that interests you. Do let me know if you need help with it but the instructions should be fairly self-explanatory. My next NFJS show is the Central Ohio Software Symposium in Columbus on June 6-8 (sorry for the late notice - it's been a really crazy few weeks). Here's my tour schedule so far, I'll keep you up-to-date as the tour goes forward: June 6 - 8, Columbus Ohio. June 24 - 27, Denver Colorado (UberConf) - my most extensive agenda on the tour so far. July 18 - 20, Austin Texas. I hope you'll take this opportunity to get some updates on Java EE as well as the other awesome content on the tour?

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• Improving the running time of Breadth First Search and Adjacency List creation

  - by user45957

  We are given an array of integers where all elements are between 0-9. have to start from the 1st position and reach end in minimum no of moves such that we can from an index i move 1 position back and forward i.e i-1 and i+1 and jump to any index having the same value as index i. Time Limit : 1 second Max input size : 100000 I have tried to solve this problem use a single source shortest path approach using Breadth First Search and though BFS itself is O(V+E) and runs in time the adjacency list creation takes O(n2) time and therefore overall complexity becomes O(n2). is there any way i can decrease the time complexity of adjacency list creation? or is there a better and more efficient way of solving the problem? int main(){ vector<int> v; string str; vector<int> sets[10]; cin>>str; int in; for(int i=0;i<str.length();i++){ in=str[i]-'0'; v.push_back(in); sets[in].push_back(i); } int n=v.size(); if(n==1){ cout<<"0\n"; return 0; } if(v[0]==v[n-1]){ cout<<"1\n"; return 0; } vector<int> adj[100001]; for(int i=0;i<10;i++){ for(int j=0;j<sets[i].size();j++){ if(sets[i][j]>0) adj[sets[i][j]].push_back(sets[i][j]-1); if(sets[i][j]<n-1) adj[sets[i][j]].push_back(sets[i][j]+1); for(int k=j+1;k<sets[i].size();k++){ if(abs(sets[i][j]-sets[i][k])!=1){ adj[sets[i][j]].push_back(sets[i][k]); adj[sets[i][k]].push_back(sets[i][j]); } } } } queue<int> q; q.push(0); int dist[100001]; bool visited[100001]={false}; dist[0]=0; visited[0]=true; int c=0; while(!q.empty()){ int dq=q.front(); q.pop(); c++; for(int i=0;i<adj[dq].size();i++){ if(visited[adj[dq][i]]==false){ dist[adj[dq][i]]=dist[dq]+1; visited[adj[dq][i]]=true; q.push(adj[dq][i]); } } } cout<<dist[n-1]<<"\n"; return 0; }

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• Undefined fireball movement behavior

  - by optimisez

  Demonstration video I try to do after the player shoot 10 times of fireball, then delete all the fireball objects and recreate a 10 new set of fireball objects. I did it but there is a weird bug happens that sometimes the fireball will come out from top and move to the right after shooting a few times. All the 10 fireballs should follow the player all the time and all the fireball should come out from player even after a new set of fireballs is recreated. Any ideas to fix it? Variables typedef struct gameObject{ float X; float Y; int length; int height; bool action; }; // Fireball #define FIREBALL_NUM 10 LPDIRECT3DTEXTURE9 fireball = NULL; RECT fireballRect; gameObject *fireballDest = new gameObject[FIREBALL_NUM]; int iFireBallAnimation; int fireballCount = 0; Set up Fireball void setUpFireBall() { // Initialize destination rectangle, rectangle height and length for (int i = 0; i < FIREBALL_NUM; i++) { fireballDest[i].X = 0; fireballDest[i].Y = 0; fireballDest[i].length = fireballRect.right - fireballRect.left; fireballDest[i].height = fireballRect.bottom - fireballRect.top; } iFireBallAnimation = fireballRect.right - fireballRect.left; // Initialize boolean for (int i = 0; i < FIREBALL_NUM; i++) { fireballDest[i].action = false; } } Initialize fireball void initFireball() { hr = D3DXCreateTextureFromFileEx(d3dDevice, "fireball.png", 512, 512, D3DX_DEFAULT, NULL, D3DFMT_A8R8G8B8, D3DPOOL_MANAGED, D3DX_DEFAULT, D3DX_DEFAULT, D3DCOLOR_XRGB(255, 255, 0), NULL, NULL, &fireball); // Initialize source rectangle fireballRect.left = 0; fireballRect.top = 256; fireballRect.right = 64; fireballRect.bottom = 320; setUpFireBall(); } Update fireball void update() { updateAnimation(); updateAI(); updatePhysics(); updateGameState(); } void updatePhysics() { motion(); collison(); } void motion() { playerMove(); playerJump(); playerGravity(); shootFireball(); fireballFollowPlayer(); } void shootFireball() { if (keyArr['Z']) fireballDest[fireballCount].action = true; if (fireballDest[fireballCount].action) { fireballDest[fireballCount].X += 10; if (fireballDest[fireballCount].X > 800) fireballCount++; } } void fireballFollowPlayer() { for (int i = 0; i < FIREBALL_NUM; i++) { if (fireballDest[i].action == false) { fireballDest[i].X = playerDest.X - 30; fireballDest[i].Y = playerDest.Y - 14; } } } void updateGameState() { // When no more fireball left, rearm fireball if (fireballCount == FIREBALL_NUM) { delete[] fireballDest; fireballDest = new gameObject[10]; fireballCount = 0; setUpFireBall(); } } Render fireball void renderFireball() { for (int i = 0; i < FIREBALL_NUM; i++) { if (fireballDest[i].action) sprite->Draw(fireball, &fireballRect, NULL, &D3DXVECTOR3(fireballDest[i].X, fireballDest[i].Y, 0), D3DCOLOR_XRGB(255,255, 255)); } }

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• Get Your Enterprise Working With Oracle On Track Communication 1.0

  - by Josh Lannin

  The On Track Development team is very pleased to announce that today On Track is available for our customers to download and evaluate.  To learn more about what On Track does start with our whitepaper and datasheet.   If you are a developer, take a look at our documentation and samples posted to our OTN page. For this first blog post, I’ll be speaking to several notable points about our product. Graceful Escalation via Conversations: On Track addresses the “Collaboration Problem” through a single guiding principle – graceful escalation – within the construct of a Conversation. In On Track, collaboration is based on a context (called a “Conversation”) that gracefully escalates in form, structure, and content, as dictated by the particular needs of a given collaboration.  Within that context, On Track provides a rich set of tools to choose from.  These tools provide for communication, coordination, content management, organization, decision making, and analysis -- all essential aspects of collaboration, but not all of them are essential all of the time.  Every collaborative interaction will evolve differently.  Some will evolve to represent work spreading over the course of years and involving a large, distributed team, while others may involve few people and not evolve at all.  Regardless, all collaborative contexts are built from the same parts, utilize the same concepts, and start the same way.  The principle of graceful escalation is that you only use the tools and structure you need; so you only incur the complexity you need. Purposeful Collaboration: Through application integration, On Track Conversations bring enterprise application users the communication and collaboration capabilities required to complete business process.  By association with specific processes or business objects conversations extend the possible interactions and broaden participation to internal or external non-application users and provide a sophisticated interaction experience, all the while enhancing the data set within the owning application.  Purposeful collaboration not only needs to happen in the context of applications, it must support a full range of real-time and long-running interactions to provide the greatest value. Multi Client, Multi Modal: This On Track 1.0 product release includes the same day availability of  multiple clients, including iPhone and iPad applications which are now available on the Apple Store, a fully capable and accessible Outlook Add-In, along with our browser web client.  With each client we have sought to leverage the strengths of each unique device- our iPhone client supports picture and voice posts, the iPad is optimized for meeting room situations and document viewing, and our Outlook add-in allows you to take emails in context and bring them into On Track.  In addition to supporting a diverse array of clients, On Track provides a unified multi modal experience support starting with basic messages moving through to integrated documents with live annotations, snapshots, application sharing, and voice. Next Generation Web Architecture: We believe On Track will help move the bar higher for what users can expect from all web applications, most notably ones that involve real-time activity.  On Track is built from the ground up with an innovative, real-time architecture that leverages the extensive push capabilities of our server.  Whether you are receiving a new message, viewing where crowds of people are collaborating, or doing live annotation on a document with a set of people, that information comes to you immediately without refreshes or moving back and forth between pages.  We’ve leveraged this core architecture across the product experience and raised the user experience bar for this type of application.  As well these capabilities are based on open standards and protocols, and are fully extensible by anyone- enabling sophisticated integrations to be created with a wide variety of both legacy and next-generation applications. Agile Product Development: As a product team we operate using continuous feedback and modified agile development methodologies.  We have thousands of active internal Oracle users who have helped pilot our product for critical business functions, and the On Track product development team uses our product as our primary vehicle for all our collaboration.  Additionally we been working with early access customers who are adopting our technology and providing us valuable feedback - which our process has rapidly realized in improvements to our software.  On Track agility extends to our server as well, which is built to scale, and is very simple to install and configure. We are pleased to make this product announcement and encourage you to join us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter, as well as checking back here for the latest product information.

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• Is a university education really worth it for a good programmer?

  - by Jon Purdy

  The title says it all, but here's the personal side of it: I've been doing design and programming for about as long as I can remember. If there's a programming problem, I can figure it out. (Though admittedly StackOverflow has allowed me to skip the figuring out and get straight to the doing in many instances.) I've made games, esoteric programming languages, and widgets and gizmos galore. I'm currently working on a general-purpose programming language. There's nothing I do better than programming. However, I'm just as passionate about design. Thus when I felt leaving high school that my design skills were lacking, I decided to attend university for New Media Design and Imaging, a digital design-related major. For a year, I diligently studied art and programmed in my free time. As the next year progressed, however, I was obligated to take fewer art and design classes and more technical classes. The trouble was of course that these classes were geared toward non-technical students, and were far beneath my skill level at the time. No amount of petitioning could overcome the institution's reluctance to allow me to test out of such classes, and the major offered no promise for any greater challenge in the future, so I took the extreme route: I switched into the technical equivalent of the major, New Media Interactive Development. A lot of my credits moved over into the new major, but many didn't. It would have been infeasible to switch to a more rigorous technical major such as Computer Science, and having tutored Computer Science students at every level here, I doubt I would be exposed to anything that I haven't already or won't eventually find out on my own, since I'm so involved in the field. I'm now on track to graduate perhaps a year later than I had planned, which puts a significant financial strain on my family and my future self. My schedule continues to be bogged down with classes that are wholly unnecessary for me to take. I'm being re-introduced to subjects that I've covered a thousand times over, simply because I've always been interested in it all. And though I succeed in avoiding the cynical and immature tactic of failing to complete work out of some undeserved sense of superiority, I'm becoming increasingly disillusioned by the lack of intellectual stimulation. Further, my school requires students to complete a number of quarters of co-op work experience proportional to their major. My original major required two quarters, but my current requires three, delaying my graduation even more. To top it all off, college is putting a severe strain on my relationship with my very close partner of a few years, so I've searched diligently for co-op jobs in my area, alas to no avail. I'm now in my third year, and approaching that point past which I can no longer handle this. Either I keep my head down, get a degree no matter what it takes, and try to get a job with a company that will pay me enough to do what I love that I can eventually pay off my loans; or I cut my losses now, move wherever there is work, and in six months start paying off what debt I've accumulated thus far. So the real question is: is a university education really more than just a formality? It's a big decision, and one I can't make lightly. I think this is the appropriate venue for this kind of question, and I hope it sticks around for the sake of others who might someday find themselves in similar situations. My heartfelt thanks for reading, and in advance for your help.

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• How to write simple code using TDD [migrated]

  - by adeel41

  Me and my colleagues do a small TDD-Kata practice everyday for 30 minutes. For reference this is the link for the excercise http://osherove.com/tdd-kata-1/ The objective is to write better code using TDD. This is my code which I've written public class Calculator { public int Add( string numbers ) { const string commaSeparator = ","; int result = 0; if ( !String.IsNullOrEmpty( numbers ) ) result = numbers.Contains( commaSeparator ) ? AddMultipleNumbers( GetNumbers( commaSeparator, numbers ) ) : ConvertToNumber( numbers ); return result; } private int AddMultipleNumbers( IEnumerable getNumbers ) { return getNumbers.Sum(); } private IEnumerable GetNumbers( string separator, string numbers ) { var allNumbers = numbers .Replace( "\n", separator ) .Split( new string[] { separator }, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries ); return allNumbers.Select( ConvertToNumber ); } private int ConvertToNumber( string number ) { return Convert.ToInt32( number ); } } and the tests for this class are [TestFixture] public class CalculatorTests { private int ArrangeAct( string numbers ) { var calculator = new Calculator(); return calculator.Add( numbers ); } [Test] public void Add_WhenEmptyString_Returns0() { Assert.AreEqual( 0, ArrangeAct( String.Empty ) ); } [Test] [Sequential] public void Add_When1Number_ReturnNumber( [Values( "1", "56" )] string number, [Values( 1, 56 )] int expected ) { Assert.AreEqual( expected, ArrangeAct( number ) ); } [Test] public void Add_When2Numbers_AddThem() { Assert.AreEqual( 3, ArrangeAct( "1,2" ) ); } [Test] public void Add_WhenMoreThan2Numbers_AddThemAll() { Assert.AreEqual( 6, ArrangeAct( "1,2,3" ) ); } [Test] public void Add_SeparatorIsNewLine_AddThem() { Assert.AreEqual( 6, ArrangeAct( @"1 2,3" ) ); } } Now I'll paste code which they have written public class StringCalculator { private const char Separator = ','; public int Add( string numbers ) { const int defaultValue = 0; if ( ShouldReturnDefaultValue( numbers ) ) return defaultValue; return ConvertNumbers( numbers ); } private int ConvertNumbers( string numbers ) { var numberParts = GetNumberParts( numbers ); return numberParts.Select( ConvertSingleNumber ).Sum(); } private string[] GetNumberParts( string numbers ) { return numbers.Split( Separator ); } private int ConvertSingleNumber( string numbers ) { return Convert.ToInt32( numbers ); } private bool ShouldReturnDefaultValue( string numbers ) { return String.IsNullOrEmpty( numbers ); } } and the tests [TestFixture] public class StringCalculatorTests { [Test] public void Add_EmptyString_Returns0() { ArrangeActAndAssert( String.Empty, 0 ); } [Test] [TestCase( "1", 1 )] [TestCase( "2", 2 )] public void Add_WithOneNumber_ReturnsThatNumber( string numberText, int expected ) { ArrangeActAndAssert( numberText, expected ); } [Test] [TestCase( "1,2", 3 )] [TestCase( "3,4", 7 )] public void Add_WithTwoNumbers_ReturnsSum( string numbers, int expected ) { ArrangeActAndAssert( numbers, expected ); } [Test] public void Add_WithThreeNumbers_ReturnsSum() { ArrangeActAndAssert( "1,2,3", 6 ); } private void ArrangeActAndAssert( string numbers, int expected ) { var calculator = new StringCalculator(); var result = calculator.Add( numbers ); Assert.AreEqual( expected, result ); } } Now the question is which one is better? My point here is that we do not need so many small methods initially because StringCalculator has no sub classes and secondly the code itself is so simple that we don't need to break it up too much that it gets confusing after having so many small methods. Their point is that code should read like english and also its better if they can break it up earlier than doing refactoring later and third when they will do refactoring it would be much easier to move these methods quite easily into separate classes. My point of view against is that we never made a decision that code is difficult to understand so why we are breaking it up so early. So I need a third person's opinion to understand which option is much better.

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• How would I handle input with a Game Component?

  - by Aufziehvogel

  I am currently having problems from finding my way into the component-oriented XNA design. I read an overview over the general design pattern and googled a lot of XNA examples. However, they seem to be right on the opposite site. In the general design pattern, an object (my current player) is passed to InputComponent::update(Player). This means the class will know what to do and how this will affect the game (e.g. move person vs. scroll text in a menu). Yet, in XNA GameComponent::update(GameTime) is called automatically without a reference to the current player. The only XNA examples I found built some sort of higher-level Keyboard engine into the game component like this: class InputComponent: GameComponent { public void keyReleased(Keys); public void keyPressed(Keys); public bool keyDown(Keys); public void override update(GameTime gameTime) { // compare previous state with current state and // determine if released, pressed, down or nothing } } Some others went a bit further making it possible to use a Service Locator by a design like this: interface IInputComponent { public void downwardsMovement(Keys); public void upwardsMovement(Keys); public bool pausedGame(Keys); // determine which keys pressed and what that means // can be done for different inputs in different implementations public void override update(GameTime); } Yet, then I am wondering if it is possible to design an input class to resolve all possible situations. Like in a menu a mouse click can mean "click that button", but in game play it can mean "shoot that weapon". So if I am using such a modular design with game components for input, how much logic is to be put into the InputComponent / KeyboardComponent / GamepadComponent and where is the rest handled? What I had in mind, when I heard about Game Components and Service Locator in XNA was something like this: use Game Components to run the InputHandler automatically in the loop use Service Locator to be able to switch input at runtime (i.e. let player choose if he wants to use a gamepad or a keyboard; or which shall be player 1 and which player 2). However, now I cannot see how this can be done. First code example does not seem flexible enough, as on a game pad you could require some combination of buttons for something that is possible on keyboard with only one button or with the mouse) The second code example seems really hard to implement, because the InputComponent has to know in which context we are currently. Moreover, you could imagine your application to be multi-layered and let the key-stroke go through all layers to the bottom-layer which requires a different behaviour than the InputComponent would have guessed from the top-layer. The general design pattern with passing the Player to update() does not have a representation in XNA and I also cannot see how and where to decide which class should be passed to update(). At most time of course the player, but sometimes there could be menu items you have to or can click I see that the question in general is already dealt with here, but probably from a more elobate point-of-view. At least, I am not smart enough in game development to understand it. I am searching for a rather code-based example directly for XNA. And the answer there leaves (a noob like) me still alone in how the object that should receive the detected event is chosen. Like if I have a key-up event, should it go to the text box or to the player?

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• Node.js Lockstep Multiplayer Architecture

  - by Wakaka

  Background I'm using the lockstep model for a multiplayer Node.js/Socket.IO game in a client-server architecture. User input (mouse or keypress) is parsed into commands like 'attack' and 'move' on the client, which are sent to the server and scheduled to be executed on a certain tick. This is in contrast to sending state data to clients, which I don't wish to use due to bandwidth issues. Each tick, the server will send the list of commands on that tick (possibly empty) to each client. The server and all clients will then process the commands and simulate that tick in exactly the same way. With Node.js this is actually quite simple due to possibility of code sharing between server and client. I'll just put the deterministic simulator in the /shared folder which can be run by both server and client. The server simulation is required so that there is an authoritative version of the simulation which clients cannot alter. Problem Now, the game has many entity classes, like Unit, Item, Tree etc. Entities are created in the simulator. However, for each class, it has some methods that are shared and some that are client-specific. For instance, the Unit class has addHp method which is shared. It also has methods like getSprite (gets the image of the entity), isVisible (checks if unit can be seen by the client), onDeathInClient (does a bunch of stuff when it dies only on the client like adding announcements) and isMyUnit (quick function to check if the client owns the unit). Up till now, I have been piling all the client functions into the shared Unit class, and adding a this.game.isServer() check when necessary. For instance, when the unit dies, it will call if (!this.game.isServer()) { this.onDeathInClient(); }. This approach has worked pretty fine so far, in terms of functionality. But as the codebase grew bigger, this style of coding seems a little strange. Firstly, the client code is clearly not shared, and yet is placed under the /shared folder. Secondly, client-specific variables for each entity are also instantiated on the server entity (like unit.sprite) and can run into problems when the server cannot instantiate the variable (it doesn't have Image class like on browsers). So my question is, is there a better way to organize the client code, or is this a common way of doing things for lockstep multiplayer games? I can think of a possible workaround, but it does have its own problems. Possible workaround (with problems) I could use Javascript mixins that are only added when in a browser. Thus, in the /shared/unit.js file in the /shared folder, I would have this code at the end: if (typeof exports !== 'undefined') module.exports = Unit; else mixin(Unit, LocalUnit); Then I would have /client/localunit.js store an object LocalUnit of client-side methods for Unit. Now, I already have a publish-subscribe system in place for events in the simulator. To remove the this.game.isServer() checks, I could publish entity-specific events whenever I want the client to do something. For instance, I would do this.publish('Death') in /shared/unit.js and do this.subscribe('Death', this.onDeathInClient) in /client/localunit.js. But this would make the simulator's event listeners list on the server and the client different. Now if I want to clear all subscribed events only from the shared simulator, I can't. Of course, it is possible to create two event subscription systems - one client-specific and one shared - but now the publish() method would have to do if (!this.game.isServer()) { this.publishOnClient(event); }. All in all, the workaround off the top of my head seems pretty complicated for something as simple as separating the client and shared code. Thus, I wonder if there is an established and simpler method for better code organization, hopefully specific to Node.js games.

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• How does Trash Can works? Where can i find official specification / documentation / reference about it?

  - by MestreLion

  When trying to manage trash can from mounted NTFS volumes, I ended up reading FreeDesktop.org's reference on it. Poking around and doing some tests, I realized Ubuntu/Gnome does not follow the specs 100%. Here's why: For non-/ partitions, it always use <driveroot>/.Trash-<uid>, It never used <driveroot>/.Trash/<uid>, even when i created it in advance. While this works, its annoying: if i have 15 users, i end up with 15 /.Trash-xxx folders in my drive, while the other approach would still give a single folder (with 15 sub-folders). That "pollution" in my drives is very unpleasant. And specs say "If an $topdir/.Trash directory is absent, an $topdir/.Trash-$uid directory is to be used". Well, it IS present, so why it never uses it? root trash does not work, at least not out of the box. Open nautilus as root and click on trash, it gives error. Try to delete any file, it says "it cant move to trash". Ok, i know this can be fixed by creating /root/.local/share. But specs says "A “home trash” directory SHOULD be automatically created for any new user. If this directory is needed for a trashing operation but does not exist, the implementation SHOULD automatically create it, without any warnings or delays.". Why error then? Bug? Why do i must change /etc/fstab entries for mounted volumes, adding options like uid and guid, if the volumes are already mounted as RW for everyone? These are just some examples of deviation from standard. So, the question is: "If Ubuntu does not adhere 100% to the spec, HOW exactly does the trash work? WHERE can i find technical reference about Ubuntu's implementation of the trash?" By the way: if Ubuntu does happen to follow specs, please tell me what am i doing wrong, specially regarding the /.Trash-<uid> vs /.Trash/<uid> issue. Thanks! EDIT: Some more info: If a given fs has no support for sticky bit (VFAT, NTFS), it probably dont have for permitions either (at least VFAT surely doesnt). So what prevents one user for purging / restoring other users ./Trash-xxx ? If one can read/write his own Trash, he can also do the same for the whole drive, including other's trashes, isnt it? Or does Gnome has any "extra" protection on ./Trash-xxx folders on VFAT/NTFS fs? If Linux can "emulate" file permitions on NTFS mounting by editing /fstab uid and gid options, can it also "emulate" the sticky bit? I would really want to use /.Trash/xxx format... For the root issue: for the / partition, i can trash as root, and it goes to /root/.local/shate/Trash. But if i click on Nautilus "Trash" (as root), i get an error. Dont you? So files are correctly trashed, but i cant access it. All i can do is manually "purge" them (by deleting files on /root/.local/shate/Trash), but restoring would be very tricky (opening info files and manually moving, etc) For non-/ partitions (or at least for VFAT/NTFS), I can not even trash as root: it does not create a ./Trash-0 folder, it simply says "Cannot trash, want to permantly delete?" Why? About fstab: i use it for a permanent mount for my NTFS partitions. I have several, and if not "pre-mounted" they really cluttter desktop and/or Nautilus. Id rather have it pre mounted, integrated in my fs, in mounts like /data , /windows/xp , /windows/vista , and so on, and leave /media and its "mount/unmount" flexibility just for truly removable drives Si, if Ubuntu/Gnome truly follow the spec, is there any way to fix the root issues and to "emulate" the sticky bit for (at least) my fstab'ed NTFS fixed partitions?

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• Lease Accounting Closed for Comment

  - by Theresa Hickman

  December 15, 2010 marked the last day to send public comments to FASB and IASB on lease accounting. June 2011 is the deadline for the final consideration of the Leases Exposure Draft that will be given to standard setters in order to create a new lease accounting standard. Landlords, lessees, retailers, airlines industry, etc. are all worried right now about the changes to lease accounting. They feel the changes will be too costly and complex without adding significant improvement to the quality and relevance of financial statements. In a nutshell, IASB and FASB want to abolish operating leases where the lessee records the periodic payments as an expense over time. The proposed changes will mean that the accounting for leases will move from the P&L and hit both the lessee's and lessor's balance sheets. For companies that occupy a lot of property, this could significantly increase their liabilities not to mention front-load much of the costs that they were able to spread out over time before. Why are IASB and FASB doing this? Their goal is to have consistent accounting for both the lessees and lessors with higher quality financial statements. Leasing is one of four major projects being undertaken by the IASB and FASB in order to complete convergence between US GAAP and IFRS. I spoke to our resident accounting expert Seamus Moran about this to better understand how this might impact accounting software. He reminded me that the proposed changes to both US GAAP and IFRS in respect to leases are "proposed." It is still inappropriate to account for leases the way they are being proposed and we still need to account for them in accordance to the current regulations, which is what current accounting software programs, such as E-Business Suite Release 12.1 and prior and PeopleSoft Enterprise support. The FASB (US GAAP) and IASB (IFRS) exposure drafts (EDs) that outline the proposal were published. The FASB edition was published on August 17th, with comments due by December 15th. The IASB edition was published on the same date, and comments were due in London on the same date. Exposure drafts are the method both the FASB and the IASB use to solicit General Acceptance, the "GA" in GAAP. Both Boards will consider the input they have received, and perhaps revise the proposal. The proposal has come in for some criticism, both from the finance houses and the uses of the leased assets. There is, given the opposition to it, an excellent chance that the Leasing proposal will be modified or rewritten. We will know this in about six months, the usual time it takes for the FASB and IASB to digest the comments they receive. If they feel the proposal has General Acceptance, they will issue the final Standard at that time; if not, they will issue a revised proposal with another year of comment of drafting. Oracle participates in the standard setting process and is fully aware of the leasing proposal. We have designs that would reflect the proposal in hand. These designs will be finalized when the proposal is finalized. It is likely that customers will develop new financial arrangements if the proposal is finalized, and we are working with customers and partners to stay in touch with people's business responses to the proposal. The IASB and FASB are aware that ERP companies will have to revise their software, and that the companies filing results under IFRS or under US GAAP will have to implement such software. The form and timing of the release of the updated software will depend on the schedule of the take up of the new standard, the complexity of the standard, and the releases supported at the time the standard becomes effective.

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• Get Pop Up Notifications for Your RSS Feeds with Feed Notifier

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Are you looking for a way to get updates from your favorite websites right to your desktop?  If so, you’ll want to check out Feed Notifier. This free Windows application runs in the system tray and delivers pop-up notifications to your desktop when your subscribed RSS feeds are updated. Download and install Feed Notifier. (Download link below) When you are finished installing, the Feed Notifier Preferences window will open. Click on the Add… button to add an RSS feed. Copy and paste the Feed URL into the text box and click Next. Choose your polling interval. This is how often your feed will be checked for new items. You can set your polling interval for days, hours, minutes, or even seconds. Click FInish. At your configured interval, Feed Notifier will check your feeds for new items. If new items are present, they will pop up above your system tray.  You’ll get an intro portion of the article. Simply Click the headline in the feed pop up… …to open the full article in your default browser. Setting Preferences Open the preferences of Feed Notifier, by going to Start > All Programs > Feed Notifier, or right clicking on the system tray icon and selecting Preferences. On the Pop-ups tab you can configure the duration in seconds that each article stays displayed on your screen. The default is five seconds. You can also change the size of the display, the theme, and the amount of content displayed.   The Options tab offers additional configurations like article caching and using a proxy server. Filter tab allows you to filter in or out certain content. To add a filter click Add…   … then type in the filter rule. You can even choose to apply it to only certain feeds. Click OK. Feed Notifier will display on the filters tab the number of times the filter is applied. Click OK when finished.   You can scroll though the articles by using the forward and back buttons at the lower left, or use the play / pause buttons to move though the articles in a slideshow-type fashion.   Feed Notifier is nice way to get your updated feeds directly to your desktop in a timely fashion. It’s supports all RSS and Atom feeds and features a clean look and feel with plenty of customizable options. Download Feed Notifier Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Make Outlook Stop Using Internet Explorer’s RSS FeedsChange Default Feed Reader in FirefoxView Feedburner Subscriber Numbers Even if FeedCount is Not DisplayedSubscribe to RSS Feeds in Chrome with a Single ClickOrganize your RSS Feeds with FeedDemon TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Heaven & Hell Finder Icon Using TrueCrypt to Secure Your Data Quickly Schedule Meetings With NeedtoMeet Share Flickr Photos On Facebook Automatically Are You Blocked On Gtalk? Find out Discover Latest Android Apps On AppBrain

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• Building on someone else's DefaultButton Silverlight work...

  - by KyleBurns

  This week I was handed a "simple" requirement - have a search screen execute its search when the user pressed the Enter key instead of having to move hands from keyboard to mouse and click Search.  That is a reasonable request that has been met for years both in Windows and Web apps.  I did a quick scan for code to pilfer and found Patrick Cauldwell's Blog posting "A 'Default Button' In Silverlight".  This posting was a great start and I'm glad that the basic work had been done for me, but I ran into one issue - when using bound textboxes (I'm a die-hard MVVM enthusiast when it comes to Silverlight development), the search was being executed before the textbox I was in when the Enter key was pressed updated its bindings.  With a little bit of reflection work, I think I have found a good generic solution that builds upon Patrick's to make it more binding-friendly.  Also, I wanted to set the DefaultButton at a higher level than on each TextBox (or other control for that matter), so the use of mine is intended to be set somewhere such as the LayoutRoot or other high level control and will apply to all controls beneath it in the control tree.  I haven't tested this on controls that treat the Enter key special themselves in the mix. The real change from Patrick's solution here is that in the KeyUp event, I grab the source of the KeyUp event (in my case the textbox containing search criteria) and loop through the static fields on the element's type looking for DependencyProperty instances.  When I find a DependencyProperty, I grab the value and query for bindings.  Each time I find a binding, UpdateSource is called to make sure anything bound to any property of the field has the opportunity to update before the action represented by the DefaultButton is executed. Here's the code: public class DefaultButtonService { public static DependencyProperty DefaultButtonProperty = DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached("DefaultButton", typeof (Button), typeof (DefaultButtonService), new PropertyMetadata (null, DefaultButtonChanged)); private static void DefaultButtonChanged(DependencyObject d, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e) { var uiElement = d as UIElement; var button = e.NewValue as Button; if (uiElement != null && button != null) { uiElement.KeyUp += (sender, arg) => { if (arg.Key == Key.Enter) { var element = arg.OriginalSource as FrameworkElement; if (element != null) { UpdateBindings(element); } if (button.IsEnabled) { button.Focus(); var peer = new ButtonAutomationPeer(button); var invokeProv = peer.GetPattern(PatternInterface.Invoke) as IInvokeProvider; if (invokeProv != null) invokeProv.Invoke(); arg.Handled = true; } } }; } } public static DefaultButtonService GetDefaultButton(UIElement obj) { return (DefaultButtonService) obj.GetValue(DefaultButtonProperty); } public static void SetDefaultButton(DependencyObject obj, DefaultButtonService button) { obj.SetValue(DefaultButtonProperty, button); } public static void UpdateBindings(FrameworkElement element) { element.GetType().GetFields(BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Static).ForEach(field => { if (field.FieldType.IsAssignableFrom(typeof(DependencyProperty))) { try { var dp = field.GetValue(null) as DependencyProperty; if (dp != null) { var binding = element.GetBindingExpression(dp); if (binding != null) { binding.UpdateSource(); } } } // ReSharper disable EmptyGeneralCatchClause catch (Exception) // ReSharper restore EmptyGeneralCatchClause { // swallow exceptions } } }); } }

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• Handling "related" work within a single agile work item

  - by Tesserex

  I'm on a project team of 4 devs, myself included. We've been having a long discussion on how to handle extra work that comes up in the course of a single work item. This extra work is usually things that are slightly related to the task, but not always necessary to accomplish the goal of the item (that may be an opinion). Examples include but are not limited to: refactoring of the code changed by the work item refactoring code neighboring the code changed by the item re-architecting the larger code area around the ticket. For example if an item has you changing a single function, you realize the entire class now could be redone to better accommodate this change. improving the UI on a form you just modified When this extra work is small we don't mind. The problem is when this extra work causes a substantial extension of the item beyond the original feature point estimation. Sometimes a 5 point item will actually take 13 points of time. In one case we had a 13 point item that in retrospect could have been 80 points or more. There are two options going around in our discussion for how to handle this. We can accept the extra work in the same work item, and write it off as a mis-estimation. Arguments for this have included: We plan for "padding" at the end of the sprint to account for this sort of thing. Always leave the code in better shape than you found it. Don't check in half-assed work. If we leave refactoring for later, it's hard to schedule and may never get done. You are in the best mental "context" to handle this work now, since you're waist deep in the code already. Better to get it out of the way now and be more efficient than to lose that context when you come back later. We draw a line for the current work item, and say that the extra work goes into a separate ticket. Arguments include: Having a separate ticket allows for a new estimation, so we aren't lying to ourselves about how many points things really are, or having to admit that all of our estimations are terrible. The sprint "padding" is meant for unexpected technical challenges that are direct barriers to completing the ticket requirements. It is not intended for side items that are just "nice-to-haves". If you want to schedule refactoring, just put it at the top of the backlog. There is no way for us to properly account for this stuff in an estimation, since it seems somewhat arbitrary when it comes up. A code reviewer might say "those UI controls (which you actually didn't modify in this work item) are a bit confusing, can you fix that too?" which is like an hour, but they might say "Well if this control now inherits from the same base class as the others, why don't you move all of this (hundreds of lines of) code into the base and rewire all this stuff, the cascading changes, etc.?" And that takes a week. It "contaminates the crime scene" by adding unrelated work into the ticket, making our original feature point estimates meaningless. In some cases, the extra work postpones a check-in, causing blocking between devs. Some of us are now saying that we should decide some cut off, like if the additional stuff is less than 2 FP, it goes in the same ticket, if it's more, make it a new ticket. Since we're only a few months into using Agile, what's the opinion of all the more seasoned Agile veterans around here on how to handle this?

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• Iterative and Incremental Principle Series 4: Iteration Planning – (a.k.a What should I do today?)

  - by llowitz

  Welcome back to the fourth of a five part series on applying the Iteration and Incremental principle.  During the last segment, we discussed how the Implementation Plan includes the number of the iterations for a project, but not the specifics about what will occur during each iteration.  Today, we will explore Iteration Planning and discuss how and when to plan your iterations. As mentioned yesterday, OUM prescribes initially planning your project approach at a high level by creating an Implementation Plan.  As the project moves through the lifecycle, the plan is progressively refined.  Specifically, the details of each iteration is planned prior to the iteration start. The Iteration Plan starts by identifying the iteration goal.  An example of an iteration goal during the OUM Elaboration Phase may be to complete the RD.140.2 Create Requirements Specification for a specific set of requirements.  Another project may determine that their iteration goal is to focus on a smaller set of requirements, but to complete both the RD.140.2 Create Requirements Specification and the AN.100.1 Prepare Analysis Specification.  In an OUM project, the Iteration Plan needs to identify both the iteration goal – how far along the implementation lifecycle you plan to be, and the scope of work for the iteration.  Since each iteration typically ranges from 2 weeks to 6 weeks, it is important to identify a scope of work that is achievable, yet challenging, given the iteration goal and timeframe.  OUM provides specific guidelines and techniques to help prioritize the scope of work based on criteria such as risk, complexity, customer priority and dependency.  In OUM, this prioritization helps focus early iterations on the high risk, architecturally significant items helping to mitigate overall project risk.  Central to the prioritization is the MoSCoW (Must Have, Should Have, Could Have, and Won’t Have) list.   The result of the MoSCoW prioritization is an Iteration Group.  This is a scope of work to be worked on as a group during one or more iterations.  As I mentioned during yesterday’s blog, it is pointless to plan my daily exercise in advance since several factors, including the weather, influence what exercise I perform each day.  Therefore, every morning I perform Iteration Planning.   My “Iteration Plan” includes the type of exercise for the day (run, bike, elliptical), whether I will exercise outside or at the gym, and how many interval sets I plan to complete.    I use several factors to prioritize the type of exercise that I perform each day.  Since running outside is my highest priority, I try to complete it early in the week to minimize the risk of not meeting my overall goal of doing it twice each week.  Regardless of the specific exercise I select, I follow the guidelines in my Implementation Plan by applying the 6-minute interval sets.  Just as in OUM, the iteration goal should be in context of the overall Implementation Plan, and the iteration goal should move the project closer to achieving the phase milestone goals. Having an Implementation Plan details the strategy of what I plan to do and keeps me on track, while the Iteration Plan affords me the flexibility to juggle what I do each day based on external influences thus maximizing my overall success. Tomorrow I’ll conclude the series on applying the Iterative and Incremental approach by discussing how to manage the iteration duration and highlighting some benefits of applying this principle.

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• Screen Aspect Ratio

  - by Bill Evjen

  Jeffrey Dean, Pixar Aspect Ratio is very important to home video. What is aspect ratio – the ratio from the height to the width 2.35:1 The image is 2.35 times wide as it is high Pixar uses this for half of our movies This is called a widescreen image When modified to fit your television screen They cut this to fit the box of your screen When a comparison is made huge chunks of picture is missing It is harder to find what is going on when these pieces are missing The whole is greater than the pieces themselves. If you are missing pieces – you are missing the movie The soul and the mood is in the film shots. Cutting it to fit a screen, you are losing 30% of the movie Why different aspect ratios? Film before the 1950s 1.33:1 Academy Standard There were all aspects of images though. There was no standard. Thomas Edison developed projecting images onto a wall/screen He didn’t patent it as he saw no value in it. Then 1.37:1 came about to add a strip of sound This is the same size as a 35mm film Around 1952 – TV comes along NTSC Television followed the Academy Standard (4x3) Once TV came out, movie theater attendance plummets So Film brought forth color to combat this. Also early 3D Also Widescreen was brought forth. Cinema-Scope Studios at the time made movies bigger and bigger There was a Napoleon movie that was actually 4x1 … really wide. 1.85:1 Academy Flat 2.35:1 Anamorphic Scope (aka Panavision/Cinemascope) Almost all movies are made in these two aspect ratios Pixar has done half in one and half in the other Why choose one over the other? Artist choice It is part of the story the director wants to tell Can we preserve the story outside of the theaters? TVs before 1998 – they were very square Now TVs are very wide Historical options Toy Story released as it was and people cut it in a way that wasn’t liked by the studio Pan and Scan is another option Cut and then scan left or right depending on where the action is Frame Height Pixar can go back and animate more picture to account for the bottom/top bars. You end up with more sky and more ground The characters seem to get lost in the picture You lose what the director original intended Re-staging For animated movies, you can move characters around – restage the scene. It is a new completely different version of the film This is the best possible option that Pixar came up with They have stopped doing this really as the demand as pretty much dropped off Why not 1.33 today? There has been an evolution of taste and demands. VHS is a linear item The focus is about portability and not about quality Most was pan and scan and the quality was so bad – but people didn’t notice DVD was introduced in 1996 You could have more content – two versions of the film You could have the widescreen version and the 1.33 version People realized that they are seeing more of the movie with the widescreen High Def Televisions (16x9 monitors) This was introduced in 2005 Blu-ray Disc was introduced in 2006 This is all widescreen You cannot find a square TV anymore TVs are roughly 1.85:1 aspect ratio There is a change in demand Users are used to black bars and are used to widescreen Users are educated now What’s next for in-flight entertainment? High Def IFE Personal Electronic Devices 3D inflight

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• Development Quirk From ASP.NET Dynamic Compilation

  - by jkauffman

  The Problem I got a compilation error in my ASP.NET MVC3 project that tested my sanity today. (As always, names are changed to protect the innocent) The type or namespace name 'FishViewModel' does not exist in the namespace 'Company.Product.Application.Models' (are you missing an assembly reference?) Sure looks easy! There must be something in the project referring to a FishViewModel. The Confusing Part The first thing I noticed was the that error was occuring in a folder clearly not in my project and in files that I definitely had not created: %SystemRoot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\(versionNumber)\Temporary ASP.NET Files\ App_Web_mezpfjae.1.cs I also ascertained these facts, each of which made me more confused than the last: Rebuild and Clean had no effect. No controllers in the project ever returned a ViewResult using FishViewModel. No views in the project defined that they use FishViewModel. Searching across all files included in the project for “FishViewModel” provided no results. The build server did not report a problem. The Solution The problem stemmed from a file that was not included in the project but still present on the file system: (By the way, if you don’t know this trick already, there is a toolbar button in the Solution Explorer window to “Show All Files” which allows you to see files all files in the file system) In my situation, I was working on the mission-critical Fish view before abandoning the feature. Instead of deleting the file, I excluded it from the project. However, this was a bad move. It caused the build failure, and in order to fix the error, this file must be deleted. By the way, this file was not in source control, so the build server did not have it. This explains why my build server did not report a problem for me. The Explanation So, what’s going on? This file isn’t even a part of the project, so why is it failing the build? This is a behavior of the ASP.NET Dynamic Compilation. This is the same process that occurs when deploying a webpage; ASP.NET compiles the web application’s code. When this occurs on a production server, it has to do so without the .csproj file (which isn’t usually deployed, if you’ve taken your time to do a deployment cleanly). This process has merely the file system available to identify what to compile. So, back in the world of developing the webpage in visual studio on my developer box, I run into the situation because the same process is occuring there. This is true even though I have more files on my machine than will actually get deployed. I can’t help but think that this error could be attributed back to the real culprit file (Fish.cshtml, rather than the temporary files) with some work, but at least the error had enough information in it to narrow it down. The Conclusion I had previously been accustomed to the idea that for c# projects, the .csproj file always “defines” the build behavior. This investigation has taught me that I’ll need to shift my thinking a bit to remember that the file system has the final say when it comes to web applications, even on the developer’s machine!

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• At the Java DEMOgrounds - Oracle Java ME Embedded Enables the “Internet of Things”

  - by Janice J. Heiss

  I caught up with Oracle’s Robert Barnes, Senior Director, Java Product Management, who was demonstrating a new product from Oracle’s Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME) product portfolio, Oracle Java ME Embedded 3.2, a complete client Java runtime optimized for microcontrollers and other resource-constrained devices. Oracle’s Java ME Embedded 3.2 is a Java ME runtime based on CLDC 1.1 (JSR-139) and IMP-NG (JSR-228).“What we are showing here is the Java ME Embedded 3.2 that we announced last week,” explained Barnes. “It’s the start of the 'Internet of Things,’ in which you have very very small devices that are on the edge of the network where the sensors sit. You often have a middle area called a gateway or a concentrator which is fairly middle to higher performance. On the back end you have a very high performance server. What this is showing is Java spanning all the way from the server side right down towards the type of chip that you will get at the sensor side as the network.” Barnes explained that he had two different demos running.The first, called the Solar Panel System Demo, measures the brightness of the light.  “This,” said Barnes, “is a light source demo with a Cortex M3 controlling the motor, on the end of which is a sensor which is measuring the brightness of the lamp. This is recording the data of the brightness of the lamp and as we move the lamp out of the way, we should be able using the server to turn the sensor towards the lamp so the brightness reading will go higher. This sends the message back to the server and we can look at the web server sitting on the PC underneath the desk. We can actually see the data being passed back effectively through a back office type of function within a utility environment.” The second demo, the Smart Grid Response Demo, Barnes explained, “has the same board and processor and is still using Java ME embedded with a different app on top. This is a demand response demo. What we are seeing within the managing environment is that people want to track the pricing signals of the electricity. If it’s particularly expensive at any point in time, they may turn something off. This demo sets the price of the electricity as though this is coming from the back of the server sending pricing signals to my home.” The demo had a lamp and a fan and it was tracking the price of electricity. “If I set the price of the electricity to go over 5 cents, then the device will turn off,” explained Barnes. “I can go into my settings and, in this case, change the price to 50 cents and we can wait a minus and the lamp will go off. When I change the pricing signal so that it is lower, the lamp will come back on. The key point is that the Java software we have running is the same across all the different devices; it’s a way to build applications across multiple devices using the same software. This is important because it fixes peak loading on the network and can stops blackouts.” This demo brought me back to a prior decade when Sun Microsystems first promoted  Jini technology, a version of Java that would put everything on the network and give us the smart home. Your home would be automated to tell you when you were out of milk, when to change your light bulbs, etc. You would have access to the web and the network throughout your home.It’s interesting to see how technology moves over time – from the smart home to the Internet of Things.

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• Lessons Building KeyRef (a .NET developer learning Rails)

  - by Liam McLennan

  Just because I like to build things, and I like to learn, I have been working on a keyboard shortcut reference site. I am using this as an opportunity to improve my ruby and rails skills. The first few days were frustrating. Perhaps the learning curve of all the fun new toys was a bit excessive. Finally tonight things have really started to come together. I still don’t understand the rails built-in testing support but I will get there. Interesting Things I Learned Tonight RubyMine IDE Tonight I switched to RubyMine instead of my usual Notepad++. I suspect RubyMine is a powerful tool if you know how to use it – but I don’t. At the moment it gives me errors about some gems not being activated. This is another one of those things that I will get to. I have also noticed that the editor functions significantly differently to the editors I am used to. For example, in visual studio and notepad++ if you place the cursor at the start of a line and press left arrow the cursor is sent to the end of the previous line. In RubyMine nothing happens. Haml Haml is my favourite view engine. For my .NET work I have been using its non-union Mexican CLR equivalent – nHaml. Multiple CSS Classes To define a div with more than one css class haml lets you chain them together with a ‘.’, such as: .span-6.search_result contents of the div go here Indent Consistency I also learnt tonight that both haml and nhaml complain if you are not consistent about indenting. As a consequence of the move from notepad++ to RubyMine my haml views ended up with some tab indenting and some space indenting. For the view to render all of the indents within a view must be consistent. Sorting Arrays I guessed that ruby would be able to sort an array alphabetically by a property of the elements so my first attempt was: Application.all.sort {|app| app.name} which does not work. You have to supply a comparer (much like .NET). The correct sort is: Application.all.sort {|a,b| a.name.downcase <=> b.name.downcase} MongoMapper Find by Id Since document databases are just fancy key-value stores it is essential to be able to easily search for a document by its id. This functionality is so intrinsic that it seems that the MongoMapper author did not bother to document it. To search by id simply pass the id to the find method: Application.find(‘4c19e8facfbfb01794000002’) Rails And CoffeeScript I am a big fan of CoffeeScript so integrating it into this application is high on my priorities. My first thought was to copy Dr Nic’s strategy. Unfortunately, I did not get past step 1. Install Node.js. I am doing my development on Windows and node is unix only. I looked around for a solution but eventually had to concede defeat… for now. Quicksearch The front page of the application I am building displays a list of applications. When the user types in the search box I want to reduce the list of applications to match their search. A quick googlebing turned up quicksearch, a jquery plugin. You simply tell quicksearch where to get its input (the search textbox) and the list of items to filter (the divs containing the names of applications) and it just works. Here is the code: $('#app_search').quicksearch('.search_result'); Summary I have had a productive evening. The app now displays a list of applications, allows them to be sorted and links through to an application page when an application is selected. Next on the list is to display the set of keyboard shortcuts for an application.

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• User Produtivity Kit - Powerful Packages (Part 1)

  - by [email protected]

  User Productivity Kit provides the ability to create a variety of content types including robust topics on system process and web pages with formatted text and graphics. There are times when you want to enhance content with media types not naively created by User Productivity Kit, media types such as video, custom animations, forms, and more. One method of doing this is to maintain these media files on a web server - separate from the User Productivity Kit player content and link to the files using absolute URLs such as http://myserver/overview.html. While this will get you going, you won't benefit from the content management capabilities of the UPK Developer. Features such as check-in / check-out, history, document properties, folder permissions and more are not available to this external content. Further, if you ever need to move that content to a server with a different name or domain, you'd need to update all your links. UPK version 3.1 introduced a new document type - the package. A package is a group of folders and files that you manage in the Developer library as a single document. These package documents work in the same manner as any other document in the library and you can use all of the collaborative content development features you see with other document types. Packages can be used for anything from single Word documents, PDF files, and graphics to more intricate sets of inter-related files commonly seen with HTML files and their graphics, style sheets, and JavaScript files. The structure of the files and folders within a package will always be preserved so this means that any relative links between files in the package will work. For example, an HTML file containing an image tag with a relative link to a graphic elsewhere in the same package will continue to function properly both when viewed in the Developer and when published to outputs such as the UPK Player. Once you start to use packages, you'll soon discover that there is a lot of existing content that can be re-purposed by placing it into UPK packages. Packages are easily created by selecting File...New...Package. Files can be added in a number of ways including the "Add Files" button, copy & paste from Windows Explorer, and drag & drop. To use one of the files in the package, just create a link to the file in the package you want to target. This is supported throughout the Developer in places such as section & topic concepts, frame links and hyperlinks in web pages. A little more challenging is determining how to structure packages in your library. As I mentioned earlier, a package can contain anything from a single file to dozens of files and folders. So what should you do? You could create a package for each file. You could create one package for all your files. But which one is right? Well, there's not a right and wrong answer to this question. There are advantages and disadvantages to each. The right decision will be influenced by the package files themselves, the structure of the content in the library, the size and working style of the development team, how content is shared between different outlines and more. The first consideration can be assessed the quickest. If the content to be placed in the package is composed of multiple files and those files reference each other, they should be in the same package. There are loads of examples of this type of content. HTML files with graphics and style sheets, HTML files with embedded Flash movies, and Word documents saved as HTML are all examples where the content is composed of multiple files and the files reference each other in some way. Content like this should always be placed in a singe package such that these relative links between the files are preserved and play properly in the UPK Player. In upcoming posts, I'll explain additional considerations.

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• Simple OpenGL program major slow down at high resolution

  - by Grieverheart

  I have created a small OpenGL 3.3 (Core) program using freeglut. The whole geometry is two boxes and one plane with some textures. I can move around like in an FPS and that's it. The problem is I face a big slow down of fps when I make my window large (i.e. above 1920x1080). I have monitors GPU usage when in full-screen and it shows GPU load of nearly 100% and Memory Controller load of ~85%. When at 600x600, these numbers are at about 45%, my CPU is also at full load. I use deferred rendering at the moment but even when forward rendering, the slow down was nearly as severe. I can't imagine my GPU is not powerful enough for something this simple when I play many games at 1080p (I have a GeForce GT 120M btw). Below are my shaders, First Pass #VS #version 330 core uniform mat4 ModelViewMatrix; uniform mat3 NormalMatrix; uniform mat4 MVPMatrix; uniform float scale; layout(location = 0) in vec3 in_Position; layout(location = 1) in vec3 in_Normal; layout(location = 2) in vec2 in_TexCoord; smooth out vec3 pass_Normal; smooth out vec3 pass_Position; smooth out vec2 TexCoord; void main(void){ pass_Position = (ModelViewMatrix * vec4(scale * in_Position, 1.0)).xyz; pass_Normal = NormalMatrix * in_Normal; TexCoord = in_TexCoord; gl_Position = MVPMatrix * vec4(scale * in_Position, 1.0); } #FS #version 330 core uniform sampler2D inSampler; smooth in vec3 pass_Normal; smooth in vec3 pass_Position; smooth in vec2 TexCoord; layout(location = 0) out vec3 outPosition; layout(location = 1) out vec3 outDiffuse; layout(location = 2) out vec3 outNormal; void main(void){ outPosition = pass_Position; outDiffuse = texture(inSampler, TexCoord).xyz; outNormal = pass_Normal; } Second Pass #VS #version 330 core uniform float scale; layout(location = 0) in vec3 in_Position; void main(void){ gl_Position = mat4(1.0) * vec4(scale * in_Position, 1.0); } #FS #version 330 core struct Light{ vec3 direction; }; uniform ivec2 ScreenSize; uniform Light light; uniform sampler2D PositionMap; uniform sampler2D ColorMap; uniform sampler2D NormalMap; out vec4 out_Color; vec2 CalcTexCoord(void){ return gl_FragCoord.xy / ScreenSize; } vec4 CalcLight(vec3 position, vec3 normal){ vec4 DiffuseColor = vec4(0.0); vec4 SpecularColor = vec4(0.0); vec3 light_Direction = -normalize(light.direction); float diffuse = max(0.0, dot(normal, light_Direction)); if(diffuse 0.0){ DiffuseColor = diffuse * vec4(1.0); vec3 camera_Direction = normalize(-position); vec3 half_vector = normalize(camera_Direction + light_Direction); float specular = max(0.0, dot(normal, half_vector)); float fspecular = pow(specular, 128.0); SpecularColor = fspecular * vec4(1.0); } return DiffuseColor + SpecularColor + vec4(0.1); } void main(void){ vec2 TexCoord = CalcTexCoord(); vec3 Position = texture(PositionMap, TexCoord).xyz; vec3 Color = texture(ColorMap, TexCoord).xyz; vec3 Normal = normalize(texture(NormalMap, TexCoord).xyz); out_Color = vec4(Color, 1.0) * CalcLight(Position, Normal); } Is it normal for the GPU to be used that much under the described circumstances? Is it due to poor performance of freeglut? I understand that the problem could be specific to my code, but I can't paste the whole code here, if you need more info, please tell me.

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• October in Review

  - by Richard Bingham

  With OpenWorld over October was time to get back to serious work for everyone, including the Fusion Applications Developer Relations team. Don't forget the OpenWorld content is still available, including presentation downloads, for a limited period of time so be sure to grab anything you found useful or take another scan for anything you might have missed. Of all the announcements, the continued evolution of the Oracle Cloud services for extending and integrating with Fusion Applications is increasing in popularity, and certainly the Cloud Marketplace is something we're becoming involved in. More details to follow. Fusion Concepts Last week Vik from our team started the new "Fusion Concepts" series of articles, providing those new to Fusion Applications an explanation of the architectural basics, with the aim to reduce the learning curve and lay the platform for more efficient and effective development. The series begun with an insightful first post on the different schemas that exist in the Fusion Applications database. Look out for upcoming posts on multi-lingual entities, profile options, look-ups and more. New Learning Resources Our YouTube channel continued to expand with more 'how to' videos on using page composer, extending the Simplified UI (aka FUSE), and integrating BI reports and analytics. Also the Oracle Learning Library is now well established as a central resource for knowledge, now with thousands of tutorials, videos, and documents. Of particular note are the great new extensibility-related videos added by the CRM Product Management team, including more on the ever-expanding capabilities of Application Composer. To see some examples of these search using keyword 'customization' or the product 'Sales Cloud'. Finally on learning resources, as Oliver mentioned the Oracle Press book on Fusion Application Customization and Extensibility is now available for pre-order on Amazon (due out 1st Jan). Out And About October also saw us attend the annual Apps Conference held by the UK Oracle User Group in London. Interestingly there was an Applications Transformation stream of sessions and content that included Fusion Applications with all the latest in the Oracle Applications evolution, as always focused around the three tenets of social, mobile, and cloud. Read more in Richard's post-event write up. Other teams around Oracle have also been busy. Angelo from the Platform Technical Services group has done quite a bit of work using web services with Fusion SaaS and has published many interesting findings on his blog. It's definitely recommended reading if you are working on any related integration projects. The middleware-for-applications group has built a new tool called "AppAdvantage" offering an online assessment of your use of Fusion Middleware technologies with Oracle Applications. As the popularity of integrating cloud applications with on-premises systems continued to grow, leveraging existing middleware technologies (and licenses) to support the integration solution is likely to be of paramount importance. Similarly the "Build Enterprise Application Extensions with Ease" section of the related webpage has AppsUX director Killan Evers speaking about customization using the composer tools. Both are useful resources for those just getting started with a move to Fusion Applications. The Oracle A-Team, specialists in middleware technical architecture, always publish superb content via their 'chronicles' site, now with a substantial amount specifically related to Fusion Applications. Click on the Fusion Applications menu on the top right of their homepage to see more. Last month of particular note was an article on customizing the timeout pop-up message that shows to inactive users, providing design-time insight and easy-to-follow steps. Finally if you're looking at using Oracle Middleware and Cloud to tailor and extend your applications then you may also be interested in this new blog post on the roadmap for Oracle SOA and the latest on-demand Cloud Development webcast.

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