Search Results

Search found 41573 results on 1663 pages for 'change management'.

Page 382/1663 | < Previous Page | 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389  | Next Page >

• Using mod_speling with multi-level htaccess and rewriterules

  - by michaelcgorman

  We recently switched formats for managing our 301s. For the most part, everything went well, but it seems to have stopped mod_speling from working properly. Here's what we changed: old /var/www/html/.htaccess: RewriteEngine on RewriteBase / # Change SHTML to HTML RewriteRule ^(.*)\.shtml$ $1.html [R=permanent,L] # Change PCF to HTML ('cause, you know, we probably have CMS users like that...) RewriteRule ^(.*)\.pcf$ $1.html [R=permanent,L] # Force WWW subdomain for all requests RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.example.edu$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.edu/$1 [R,L] # User accounts are on sun.example.edu RedirectMatch ^/~(.*)$ http://sun.example.edu/~$1 # Remove index.html at the end of URLs RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(.*/)index\.html$ [NC] RewriteRule . %1 [R=301,NE,L] Redirect 301 /academics/calendar2012-13.html http://www.example.edu/academics/calendar.html Redirect 301 /academics/departments/ http://www.example.edu/majors/ Redirect 301 /academics/Pre-Medical.pdf http://www.example.edu/academics/Pre-Medicine.pdf Redirect 301 ... new /var/www/html/.htaccess: RewriteEngine on RewriteBase / # Change SHTML to HTML RewriteRule ^(.*)\.shtml$ $1.html [R=permanent,L] # Change PCF to HTML ('cause, you know, we probably have CMS users like that...) RewriteRule ^(.*)\.pcf$ $1.html [R=permanent,L] # Force WWW subdomain for all requests RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.example.edu$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.edu/$1 [R,L] # User accounts are on sun.example.edu RedirectMatch ^/~(.*)$ http://sun.example.edu/~$1 # Remove index.html at the end of URLs RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(.*/)index\.html$ [NC] RewriteRule . %1 [R=301,NE,L] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteRule ^(.*) 404/$1 And then we added a new file at /var/www/html/404/.htaccess: RewriteEngine on RewriteBase /404 RewriteRule ^academics/calendar2012-13.html$ /academics/calendar.html [R=302,L] RewriteRule ^academics/departments/$ /majors/ [R=301,L] RewriteRule ^academics/Pre-Medical.pdf$ /academics/Pre-Medicine.pdf[R=301,L] RewriteRule ... I do have (Webmin-based) access to the httpd.conf (though we don't want to store all our 301s there, if possible). We're running Apache 2.2.15 on RHEL 6 on a server in our own data center. Like I said, the only problem we're seeing is that mod_speling isn't doing its magic anymore. The new format has so many advantages over the old that we really don't want to go back, but mod_speling is so nice to have that we'd also really like it to work if possible. Any ideas for how we might be able to fix mod_speling?

  Read the article

• How to adjust the appearance of the Unity in 12.10?

  - by piedro

  Now I updated to 12.10 and would like to adjust the desktop, well unity, appearance. I know there is the theme setting, but I cannot adjust the symbol theme or windows decoration with the systemsettings. I used to use the tool "unsettings" but it doesn't work with 12.10 anymore. Ubuntu Tweak used to be an option but at this point many features are broken and a lot of settings seem to mess up my system or they don't change anything at all (I understand that there has been a design settings change - gsettings, dconf, something ...) myunity has some options to change stuff but I couldn't find it for 12.10 ... not to forget "gnome-tweak-tool" which seems to work for most settings but not for all, e.g. it doesn't change the mouse cursor and the windows decorations do not show some decorations I'd like to use and I am also afraid of messing things up because it is supposed to be used in gnomeshell ... actually as I found out right now it really messes things up: fonts get inverted, suddenly high contrast accessibility setings are used in some windows, nautilus has white fonts on white background and even the login manager is a mess now ... So: How can I adjust the theme, symbol, decorations, fonts for the normal user and for the desktop and for the applications including the applications started as sudo user? I should mention that I upgraded from 12.04 and that some applications like synaptic completely ignore any settings ... sadly it is a mess, there was a time when gnome theming was really well done and very adjustable, I wonder what happened ... Just now I read that further development of Ubuntu Tweak has been stopped. The developer announced that he won't go any further with the software and the online services ... That is sad and destroys my hope for easy appearance editing just by waiting ... has been such a nice tool for 12.04 ... r.i.p.

  Read the article

• Should I use a config file or database for storing business rules?

  - by foiseworth

  I have recently been reading The Pragmatic Programmer which states that: Details mess up our pristine code—especially if they change frequently. Every time we have to go in and change the code to accommodate some change in business logic, or in the law, or in management's personal tastes of the day, we run the risk of breaking the system—of introducing a new bug. Hunt, Andrew; Thomas, David (1999-10-20). The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master (Kindle Locations 2651-2653). Pearson Education (USA). Kindle Edition. I am currently programming a web app that has some models that have properties that can only be from a set of values, e.g. (not actual example as the web app data confidential): light-type = sphere / cube / cylinder The light type can only be the above three values but according to TPP I should always code as if they could change and place their values in a config file. As there are several incidents of this throughout the app, my question is: Should I store possibly values like these in: a config file: 'light-types' = array(sphere, cube, cylinder), 'other-type' = value, 'etc = etc-value a single table in a database with one line for each config item a database with a table for each config item (e.g. table: light_types; columns: id, name) some other way? Many thanks for any assistance / expertise offered.

  Read the article

• Mercurial says "nothing changed", but it did. Sometimes my software is too clever.

  - by user12608033

  It seems I have found a "bug" in Mercurial. It takes a shortcut when checking for differences in tracked files. If the file's size and modification time are unchanged, it assumes its contents are unchanged: $ hg init . $ cp -p .sccs2hg/2005-06-05_00\:00\:00\,nicstat.c nicstat.c $ ls -ogE nicstat.c -rw-r--r-- 1 14722 2012-08-24 11:22:48.819451726 -0700 nicstat.c $ hg add nicstat.c $ hg commit -m "added nicstat.c" $ cp -p .sccs2hg/2005-07-02_00\:00\:00\,nicstat.c nicstat.c $ ls -ogE nicstat.c -rw-r--r-- 1 14722 2012-08-24 11:22:48.819451726 -0700 nicstat.c $ hg diff $ hg commit nothing changed $ touch nicstat.c $ hg diff diff -r b49cf59d431d nicstat.c --- a/nicstat.c Fri Aug 24 11:21:27 2012 -0700 +++ b/nicstat.c Fri Aug 24 11:22:50 2012 -0700 @@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ * nicstat - print network traffic, Kb/s read and written. Solaris 8+. * "netstat -i" only gives a packet count, this program gives Kbytes. * - * 05-Jun-2005, ver 0.81 (check for new versions, http://www.brendangregg.com) + * 02-Jul-2005, ver 0.90 (check for new versions, http://www.brendangregg.com) * [...] Now, before you agree or disagree with me on whether this is a bug, I will also say that I believe it is a feature. Yes, I feel it is an acceptable shortcut because in "real" situations an edit to a file will change the modification time by at least one second (the resolution that hg diff or hg commit is looking for). The benefit of the shortcut is greatly improved performance of operations like "hg diff" and "hg status", particularly where your repository contains a lot of files. Why did I have no change in modification time? Well, my source file was generated by a script that I have written to convert SCCS change history to Mercurial commits. If my script can generate two revisions of a file within a second, and the files are the same size, then I run afoul of this shortcut. Solution - I will just change my script to apply the modification time from the SCCS history to the file prior to commit. A "touch -t " will do that easily.

  Read the article

• Introducing the PeopleSoft Interaction Hub

  - by Matthew Haavisto

  The PeopleSoft Applications Portal has just been re-branded as the PeopleSoft Interaction Hub.  It's not just a name change, however.  As part of our ongoing efforts to deliver a richer user experience to PeopleSoft customers, Oracle/PeopleSoft is now offering an enhanced restricted use license (login required) of the PeopleSoft Interaction Hub free with PeopleTools.  This change extends the existing restricted use license to include the following additional capabilities: Dynamic Unified Navigation.  Enables customers to easily provide seamless, unified navigation among their entire PeopleSoft application portfolio. Site-wide branding.  Makes it easier to brand your ecosystem and provide a vivid, contemporary appearance for your applications. These additions augment the capabilities provided in the previous restricted use license, which remain available: creation and use of collaborative workspaces, and pre-built collaborative services for use in related content.  (See the license notes (login required)for a complete list of everything that is granted with the PeopleTools license.)PeopleSoft is moving to deliver a contemporary user experience for your applications users, and the this license change supports that direction.  In addition, the name change reflects our positioning of the PeopleSoft Interaction Hub as a primary means for unifying your PeopleSoft ecosystem, and providing a richer, web-site-based user experience rather than a pillared, application-based experience.See this white paper to get an idea of some of the capabilities that you can employ with the PeopleSoft Interaction Hub to enhance the PeopleSoft user experience.  In addition, this red paper provides valuable 'how-to' guidance.  In the near future we will be producing a best practices guide for deployment.  In the mean time, the most recent release/feature pack of the PIH automates the setup of unified navigation with a Workcenter specifically supporting Unified Navigation. This Workcenter guides administrators through the setup process, and streamlines things.So what should customers do if they still want to use the PeopleSoft Interaction Hub for traditional portal purposes?  Customers can employ the PIH's full capabilities such as multiple site deployment/management and content management, by buying the full, unrestricted license. We are continuing to enhance the product, and it remains part of Applications Unlimited, and we have some exciting features planned.

  Read the article

• Looking for an example of how a software project can be managed/deployed

  - by rguilbault

  My company is evaluating adopting off-the-shelf ALM products to aid in our development lifecycle; we currently use our own homegrown solutions to manage requirements gathering, specification documentation, testing, etc. One of the issues I am having is understanding how to move code between stages of development. We have what we call a pipeline, which consists of particular stops: [Source] - [QC] - [Production] At the first stop, the developer works out a solution to some requested change and performs individual testing. When that process is complete (and peer review has been performed), our ALM system physically moves the affected programs from the [Source] runtime environment to the [QC] runtime environment. This movement of code is triggered by advancing the status of the change request to match the stage of the pipeline. I have been searching the internet for a few days trying to find how the process is accomplished elsewhere -- I have read a bit about builds, automated testing, various ALM products, etc. but nowhere does any of this state how builds interact with initial change requests, what the triggers are, how dependencies are managed, how the various forms of testing are accommodated (e.g. unit testing, integration testing, regression testing), etc. Can anyone point me to any resources detailing specific workflows or attempt to explain (generically) how a change could/should be tracked and moved though the development lifecycle? I'd be very appreciative. Note: I've cleaned up the question to hopefully make it easier to understand. Also, I found another question (which I can't find now) that referenced this book, which sounds like it might be exactly what I am looking for -- not sure if I want to shell out the cash for it, though.

  Read the article

• Business Forces: SOA Adoption

  The only constant in today’s business environment is change. Businesses that continuously foresee change and adapt quickly will gain market share and increased growth. In our ever growing global business environment change is driven by data in regards to collecting, maintaining, verifying and distributing data.  Companies today are made and broken over data. Would anyone still use Google if they did not have one of the most accurate search indexes on the internet? No, because their value is in their data and the quality of their data. Due to the increasing focus on data, companies have been adopting new methodologies for gaining more control over their data while attempting to reduce the costs of maintaining it. In addition, companies are also trying to reduce the time it takes to analyze data in regards to various market forces to foresee changes prior to them actually occurring.   Benefits of Adopting SOA Services can be maintained separately from other services and applications so that a change in one service will only affect itself and client services or applications. The advent of services allows for system functionality to be distributed across a network or multiple networks. The costs associated with maintain business functionality is much higher in standard application development over SOA due to the fact that one Services can be maintained and shared to other applications instead of multiple instances of business functionality being duplicated via hard coding in to several applications. When multiple applications use a single service for a specific business function then the all of the data being processed will be consistent in terms of quality and accuracy through the applications. Disadvantages of Adopting SOA Increased initial costs and timelines are associated with SOA due to the fact that services need to be created as well as applications need to be modified to call the services In order for an SOA project to be successful the project must obtain company and management support in order to gain the proper exposure, funding, and attention. If SOA is new to a company they must also support the proper training in order for the project to be designed, and implemented correctly. References: Tews, R. (2007). Beyond IT: Exploring the Business Value of SOA. SOA Magazine Issue XI.

  Read the article

• The (non) Importance of Language

  - by Eric A. Stephens

  Working with a variety of clients on EA initiatives one begins to realize that not everyone is a fan of EA. Specifically, they are not a fan of the "a-word". Some organizations have abused this term with creating and assigning the title to just about anyone who demonstrates above average prowess with a particular technology. Other organizations will assign the title to those managers left with no staff after a reorg. Some companies, unfortunately, have simply had a bad go of it with regard to EA...or any "A" for that matter. What we call "EA" is almost irrelevant. But what is not negotiable for those to succeed in business is to manage change. That is what EA is all about. I recall sitting in Zachman training led by himself. He posits the only organizations that don't need EA (or whatever you want to call it) are those that are not changing. My experience suggests those orgs that aren't changing aren't growing. And if you aren't growing, you're dying. Any EA program will not succeed unless there is a desire to change. No desire to change suggests the EA/Advisor/Change Agent should just walk the other way.

  Read the article

• From the Coalface - 3 - Work as hard as you can to be as lazy as you can!

  - by TATWORTH

  The saga of the Change Log A recent conversation reminded me of the need for change logs within a database, to record when various change scripts were run. Creating such the required table is simple. A typical table for this consists of: Id - identity Integer primary key ChangeFileName - NVARCHAR(128) to hold the name of the file run. DateAdded - DateTime non-null with default value of getutcdate() Purpose - NVARCHAR(128) Rerunnable - Bit non-null default 0. By good design of the table only two data values normally need to be supplied. Two stored procedures, one for inserting data and one to list in reverse sequence the log complete the database essentials. The complete implementation can be found in the CommonData solution at http://CommonData.CodePlex.Com By including a call the add Change Log stored procedure, each script can log its name and purpose for posterity. The scripts that were applied to say the UAT system and their sequence of application can be readily identified for running on the Live system. Formatting XML XML is often produced as one continous string with no embedded CR/LF. To get it into human readable form, open it in visual studio, swap to another tab and back and click the format document button. The XML will then be nicely formatted!

  Read the article

• [PowerShell] Sql Server SMO connection timeout not working

  - by Uros Calakovic

  I have the following PowerShell code: function Get-SmoConnection { param ([string] $serverName = "", [int] $connectionTimeout = 0) if($serverName.Length -eq 0) { $serverConnection = New-Object ` Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Common.ServerConnection } else { $serverConnection = New-Object ` Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Common.ServerConnection($serverName) } if($connectionTimeout -ne 0) { $serverConnection.ConnectTimeout = $connectionTimeout } try { $serverConnection.Connect() $serverConnection } catch [system.Management.Automation.MethodInvocationException] { $null } } $connection = get-smoconnection "ServerName" 2 if($connection -ne $null) { Write-Host $connection.ServerInstance Write-Host $connection.ConnectTimeout } else { Write-Host "Connection could not be established" } It seems to work, except for the part that attempts to set the SMO connection timeout. If the connection is successful, I can verify that ServerConnection.ConnectTimeout is set to 2 (seconds), but when I supply a bogus name for the SQL Server instance, it still attempts to connect to it for ~ 15 seconds (which is I believe the default timeout value). Does anyone have experience with setting SMO connection timeout? Thank you in advance.

  Read the article

• WMI: Create Method of the Win32_Service Class

  - by Marco

  Hello, I'm trying to use the Create method of the Win32_Service class, but when I call the InvokeMethod, I receive this exception: System.Management.ManagementException: Invalid method at System.Management.ManagementException.ThrowWithExtendedInfo(ManagementStatus errorCode) at System.Management.ManagementObject.InvokeMethod(String methodName, ManagementBaseObject inParameters, InvokeMethodOptions options) at <StartupCode$FSI_0075>.$FSI_0075.main@() This is the code (in F# but it is understable for C# programmers too :)): let scope = new ManagementScope(@"root\cimv2", null) use imageService = Utility.getServiceObject scope "Win32_Service" use inParams = imageService.GetMethodParameters("Create") inParams.["Name"] <- name inParams.["DisplayName"] <- displayName inParams.["PathName"] <- pathName inParams.["ServiceType"] <- 0x10 // Own Process inParams.["ErrorControl"] <- 0 // User is not notified inParams.["StartMode"] <- "Automatic" inParams.["DesktopInteract"] <- false inParams.["StartName"] <- "LocalSystem" inParams.["StartPassword"] <- "" inParams.["ServiceDependencies"] <- null use outParams = imageService.InvokeMethod("Create", inParams, null) The exception is thrown when the last line is executed (I removed the next lines). I think I'm calling correctly the method, so I don't know why the exception is thrown. Can anyone help me? Thanks in advance, Marco

  Read the article

• Sql Server SMO connection timeout not working

  - by Uros Calakovic

  I have the following PowerShell code: function Get-SmoConnection { param ([string] $serverName = "", [int] $connectionTimeout = 0) if($serverName.Length -eq 0) { $serverConnection = New-Object ` Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Common.ServerConnection } else { $serverConnection = New-Object ` Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Common.ServerConnection($serverName) } if($connectionTimeout -ne 0) { $serverConnection.ConnectTimeout = $connectionTimeout } try { $serverConnection.Connect() $serverConnection } catch [system.Management.Automation.MethodInvocationException] { $null } } $connection = get-smoconnection "ServerName" 2 if($connection -ne $null) { Write-Host $connection.ServerInstance Write-Host $connection.ConnectTimeout } else { Write-Host "Connection could not be established" } It seems to work, except for the part that attempts to set the SMO connection timeout. If the connection is successful, I can verify that ServerConnection.ConnectTimeout is set to 2 (seconds), but when I supply a bogus name for the SQL Server instance, it still attempts to connect to it for ~ 15 seconds (which is I believe the default timeout value). Does anyone have experience with setting SMO connection timeout? Thank you in advance.

  Read the article

• SQL server 2005 remote connection problem, cannot solve it help please thank you

  - by user287745

  note:- if this question does not fit this site please do not just close it but also redirect the question to the fitting sister site, thank you" the steps taken and the error are mentioned please help, i am stuck here! installed sql server 2005 express on both computers installed sql server management studio express on both computers ran each management studio and connect to instance sqlserver using windows authentication ( one computer connection example "A-63A9D4D7E7834\SQLEXPRESS" ) created a database in the databases named as "test1" created a few tables with data saved and exit. did everything what this site says " How to configure SQL Server 2005 to allow remote connections" [add h t t p here as spam prevention] ://support.microsoft.com/kb/914277/en-us" but i have just disable the firewalls completely :turn off connecting to A-63A9D4D7E7834 started "SQL Server Management Studio Express" on computer A-63A9D4D7E7834 sever name: "ALL-E425BE6C41D\SQLEXPRESS" authentication: "windows authentication" and CONNECT I GET THE FOLLOWING ERROR Cannot connect to ALL-E425BE6C41D\SQLEXPRESS. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Login failed for user 'ALL-E425BE6C41D\Guest'. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 18456) For help, click: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?ProdName=Microsoft+SQL+Server&EvtSrc=MSSQLServer&EvtID=18456&LinkId=20476 BUTTONS: OK HELP

  Read the article

• User jQuery to get nested elements from XML

  - by Dkong

  I'm spinning my wheels on this. How do I get the values from the following nested elements from the XML below (I've also put my code below)? I am after the "descShort" value and then the capital "Last" and capital "change" : <indices> <index> <code>DJI</code> <exchange>NYSE</exchange> <liveness>DELAYED</liveness> <indexDesc> <desc>Dow Jones Industrials</desc> <descAbbrev>DOW JONES</descAbbrev> <descShort>DOW JONES</descShort> <firstActive></firstActive> <lastActive></lastActive> </indexDesc> <indexQuote> <capital> <first>11144.57</first> <high>11153.79</high> <low>10973.92</low> <last>11018.66</last> <change>-125.9</change> <pctChange>-1.1%</pctChange> </capital> <gross> <first>11144.57</first> <high>11153.79</high> <low>10973.92</low> <last>11018.66</last> <change>-125.9</change> <pctChange>-1.1%</pctChange> </gross> <totalEvents>4</totalEvents> <lastChanged>16-Apr-2010 16:03:00</lastChanged> </indexQuote> </index> <index> <code>XAO</code> <exchange>ASX</exchange> <liveness>DELAYED</liveness> <indexDesc> <desc>ASX All Ordinaries</desc> <descAbbrev>All Ordinaries</descAbbrev> <descShort>ALL ORDS</descShort> <firstActive>06-Mar-1970</firstActive> <lastActive></lastActive> </indexDesc> <indexQuote> <capital> <first>5007.30</first> <high>5007.30</high> <low>4934.00</low> <last>4939.40</last> <change>-67.9</change> <pctChange>-1.4%</pctChange> </capital> <gross> <first>5007.30</first> <high>5007.30</high> <low>4934.00</low> <last>4939.40</last> <change>-67.9</change> <pctChange>-1.4%</pctChange> </gross> <totalEvents>997</totalEvents> <lastChanged>19-Apr-2010 17:02:54</lastChanged> </indexQuote> </index> $.ajax({ type: "GET", url: "stockindices.xml", dataType: "xml", success: function(xml) { $(xml).find('index').each(function(){ var self = $(this); var code = self.find('indexDesc'); $(code).find('indexDesc').each(function(){ alert(self.find('descShort').text()); }); $('<span class=\"tickerItem\"></span>').html(values[0].text()).appendTo('#marq'); }); } });

  Read the article

• Aldon and .Net Development

  - by David Stratton

  I'm looking for feedback from .Net developers who have experience with Aldon as a lifecycle management platform. We're seriously considering using Aldon for lifecycle management including source control, automated builds, etc. I know there are a lot of other options out there, but ours is primary an AS/400 shop (with AS/400 programmers outnumbering .Net developers 6 to 1), and Aldon is used already by our iSeries team. The benefit we're looking for is having one lifecycle management suite. Basically, I'm looking for opinions from people who have used Aldon and another set of tools (perhaps TFS, or a combination of SVN, Cruise Control, etc). If you've worked with both, do you have a recommendation on whether this is a good idea, or a bad idea? It's obviously a big choice, so any feedback would be helpful.

  Read the article

• SQL server 2055 remote connection problem, cannot solve it help please thank you

  - by user287745

  note:- if this question does not fit this site please do not just close it but also redirect the question to the fitting sister site, thank you" the steps taken and the error are mentioned please help, i am stuck here! installed sql server 2005 express on both computers installed sql server management studio express on both computers ran each management studio and connect to instance sqlserver using windows authentication ( one computer connection example "A-63A9D4D7E7834\SQLEXPRESS" ) created a database in the databases named as "test1" created a few tables with data saved and exit. did everything what this site says " How to configure SQL Server 2005 to allow remote connections" [add h t t p here as spam prevention] ://support.microsoft.com/kb/914277/en-us" but i have just disable the firewalls completely :turn off connecting to A-63A9D4D7E7834 started "SQL Server Management Studio Express" on computer A-63A9D4D7E7834 sever name: "ALL-E425BE6C41D\SQLEXPRESS" authentication: "windows authentication" and CONNECT I GET THE FOLLOWING ERROR Cannot connect to ALL-E425BE6C41D\SQLEXPRESS. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Login failed for user 'ALL-E425BE6C41D\Guest'. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 18456) For help, click: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?ProdName=Microsoft+SQL+Server&EvtSrc=MSSQLServer&EvtID=18456&LinkId=20476 BUTTONS: OK HELP

  Read the article

• Can Tomcat provide seperate (or HTTPS only) sessions for HTTPS requests?

  - by Joe

  I have a web application which contains both secure (SSL) and non-secure pages. A user can login to the site and must appear logged-in in both the SSL and non-SSL areas. (NB. SSL isn't implemented via Tomcat, but via Apache HTTPD servers which sit in front of Tomcat - so Tomcat has no SSL configuration.) The logged-in state is currently maintained via a servlet session (using Tomcat's vanilla session management). The obvious issue with this approach is that the JSESSIONID cookie is transported over both HTTP and HTTPS connections, meaning that it's potentially possible to intercept it and hijack the session. Are there any solutions to this without rolling our own session management (i.e. does Tomcat cater for this situation)? I'm prepared to implement our own session management, but don't want to reinvent something that may already be supported.

  Read the article

• Customize the Five Windows Folder Templates

  - by Mark Virtue

  Are you’re particular about the way Windows Explorer presents each folder’s contents? Here we show you how to take advantage of Explorer’s built-in templates, which cuts down the time it takes to do customizations. Note: The techniques in this article apply to Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7. When opening a folder for the first time in Windows Explorer, we are presented with a standard default view of the files and folders in that folder. It may be that the items are presented are perfectly fine, but on the other hand, we may want to customize the view.  The aspects of it that we can customize are the following: The display type (list view, details, tiles, thumbnails, etc) Which columns are displayed, and in which order The widths of the visible columns The order in which the files and folders are sorted Any file groupings Thankfully, Windows offers us a shortcut.  A particular folder’s settings can be used as a “template” for other, similar folders.  In fact, we can store up to five separate sets of folder presentation configurations.  Once we save the settings for a particular template, that template can then be applied to other folders. Customize Your First Folder We’ll start by setting up the first of our templates – the default one.  Once we create this template and apply it, the vast majority of the folders in our file system will change to match it, so it’s important that we set it up very carefully.  The first step in creating and applying the template is to customize one folder with the settings that all the rest will have. Choose a folder that is typical of the folders that you wish to have this default template.  Select it in Windows Explorer.  To ensure that it is a suitable candidate, right-click the folder name and select Properties, then go to the Customize tab.  Ensure that this folder is marked as General Items.  If it is not, either choose a different folder or select General Items from the list. Click OK.  Now we’re ready to customize our first folder. Changing the way one single folder is presented is straightforward.  We start with the folder’s display type.  Click the Change your view button in the top-right corner of every Explorer window. Each time you click the button, the folder’s view cycles to the next view type.  Alternatively you can click the little down-arrow next to the button to see all the display types at once, and select the one you want. Click the view you want, or drag the slider next to the one you want. If you have chosen Details, then the next thing you may wish to change is which columns are displayed, and the order of these.  To choose which columns are displayed, simply right-click on any column heading.  A list of the columns currently being display appears. Simply uncheck a column if you don’t want it displayed, and check the columns that you want displayed.  If you want some information displayed about your files that is not listed here, then click the More… button for a full list of file attributes. There’s a lot of them! To change the order of the columns that are currently being displayed, simply click on a column heading and drag it to where you think it should be.  To change the width of a column, click the line that represents the right-hand edge of the column and drag it left or right. To sort by a column, click once on that column.  To reverse the sort-order, click that same column again. To change the groupings of the files in the folder, right-click in a blank area of the folder, select Group by, and select the appropriate column. Apply This Default Template to All Similar Folders Once you have the folder exactly the way you want it, we now use this folder as our default template for most of the folders in our file system.  To do this, ensure that you are still in the folder you just customized, and then, from the Organize menu in Explorer, click on Folder and search options. Then select the View tab and click the Apply to Folders button. After you’ve clicked OK, visit some of the other folders in your file system.  You should see that most have taken on these new settings. What we’ve just done, in effect, is we have customized the General Items template.  This is one of five templates that Windows Explorer uses to display folder contents.  The five templates are called (in Windows 7): General Items Documents Pictures Music Videos When a folder is opened, Windows Explorer examines the contents to see if it can automatically determine which folder template to use to display the folder contents.  If it is not obvious that the folder contents falls into any of the last four templates, then Windows Explorer chooses the General Items template.  That’s why most of the folders in your file system are shown using the General Items template. Changing the Other Four Templates If you want to adjust the other four templates, the process is very similar to what we’ve just done.  If you wanted to change the “Music” template, for example, the steps would be as follows: Select a folder that contains music items Apply the existing Music template to the folder (even if it doesn’t look like you want it to) Customize the folder to your personal preferences Apply the new template to all “Music” folders A fifth step would be:  When you open a folder that contains music items but is not automatically displayed using the Music template, you manually select the Music template for that folder. First, select a folder that contains music items.  It will probably be displayed using the existing Music template: Next, ensure that it is using the Music template.  If it’s not, then manually select the Music template. Next, customize the folder to suit your personal preferences (here we’ve added a couple of columns, and sorted by Artist). Now we can set this view to be our Music template.  Choose Organize, then the View tab, and click the Apply to Folders button. Note: The only folders that will inherit these settings are the ones that are currently (or will soon be) using the Music template. Now, if you have any folder that contains music items, and you want it to inherit all of these settings, then right-click the folder name, choose Properties, and select that this folder should use the Music template.  You can also cehck the box entitled Also apply this template to all subfolders if you want to save yourself even more time with all the sub-folders. Conclusion It’s neat to be able to set up templates for your folder views like this.  It’s a shame that Microsoft didn’t take the concept just a little further and allow you to create as many templates as you want. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Fix For When Windows Explorer in Vista Stops Showing File NamesCustomize the Windows 7 or Vista Send To MenuFix for New Contact Group Button Not Displaying in VistaWhy Did Windows Vista’s Music Folder Icon Turn Yellow?Make Your Last Minute Holiday Cards with Microsoft Word 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 Office 2010 reviewed in depth by Ed Bott FoxClocks adds World Times in your Statusbar (Firefox) Have Fun Editing Photo Editing with Citrify Outlook Connector Upgrade Error Gadfly is a cool Twitter/Silverlight app Enable DreamScene in Windows 7

  Read the article

• Movement prediction for non-shooters

  - by ShadowChaser

  I'm working on an isometric 2D game with moderate-scale multiplayer, approximately 20-30 players connected at once to a persistent server. I've had some difficulty getting a good movement prediction implementation in place. Physics/Movement The game doesn't have a true physics implementation, but uses the basic principles to implement movement. Rather than continually polling input, state changes (ie/ mouse down/up/move events) are used to change the state of the character entity the player is controlling. The player's direction (ie/ north-east) is combined with a constant speed and turned into a true 3D vector - the entity's velocity. In the main game loop, "Update" is called before "Draw". The update logic triggers a "physics update task" that tracks all entities with a non-zero velocity uses very basic integration to change the entities position. For example: entity.Position += entity.Velocity.Scale(ElapsedTime.Seconds) (where "Seconds" is a floating point value, but the same approach would work for millisecond integer values). The key point is that no interpolation is used for movement - the rudimentary physics engine has no concept of a "previous state" or "current state", only a position and velocity. State Change and Update Packets When the velocity of the character entity the player is controlling changes, a "move avatar" packet is sent to the server containing the entity's action type (stand, walk, run), direction (north-east), and current position. This is different from how 3D first person games work. In a 3D game the velocity (direction) can change frame to frame as the player moves around. Sending every state change would effectively transmit a packet per frame, which would be too expensive. Instead, 3D games seem to ignore state changes and send "state update" packets on a fixed interval - say, every 80-150ms. Since speed and direction updates occur much less frequently in my game, I can get away with sending every state change. Although all of the physics simulations occur at the same speed and are deterministic, latency is still an issue. For that reason, I send out routine position update packets (similar to a 3D game) but much less frequently - right now every 250ms, but I suspect with good prediction I can easily boost it towards 500ms. The biggest problem is that I've now deviated from the norm - all other documentation, guides, and samples online send routine updates and interpolate between the two states. It seems incompatible with my architecture, and I need to come up with a better movement prediction algorithm that is closer to a (very basic) "networked physics" architecture. The server then receives the packet and determines the players speed from it's movement type based on a script (Is the player able to run? Get the player's running speed). Once it has the speed, it combines it with the direction to get a vector - the entity's velocity. Some cheat detection and basic validation occurs, and the entity on the server side is updated with the current velocity, direction, and position. Basic throttling is also performed to prevent players from flooding the server with movement requests. After updating its own entity, the server broadcasts an "avatar position update" packet to all other players within range. The position update packet is used to update the client side physics simulations (world state) of the remote clients and perform prediction and lag compensation. Prediction and Lag Compensation As mentioned above, clients are authoritative for their own position. Except in cases of cheating or anomalies, the client's avatar will never be repositioned by the server. No extrapolation ("move now and correct later") is required for the client's avatar - what the player sees is correct. However, some sort of extrapolation or interpolation is required for all remote entities that are moving. Some sort of prediction and/or lag-compensation is clearly required within the client's local simulation / physics engine. Problems I've been struggling with various algorithms, and have a number of questions and problems: Should I be extrapolating, interpolating, or both? My "gut feeling" is that I should be using pure extrapolation based on velocity. State change is received by the client, client computes a "predicted" velocity that compensates for lag, and the regular physics system does the rest. However, it feels at odds to all other sample code and articles - they all seem to store a number of states and perform interpolation without a physics engine. When a packet arrives, I've tried interpolating the packet's position with the packet's velocity over a fixed time period (say, 200ms). I then take the difference between the interpolated position and the current "error" position to compute a new vector and place that on the entity instead of the velocity that was sent. However, the assumption is that another packet will arrive in that time interval, and it's incredibly difficult to "guess" when the next packet will arrive - especially since they don't all arrive on fixed intervals (ie/ state changes as well). Is the concept fundamentally flawed, or is it correct but needs some fixes / adjustments? What happens when a remote player stops? I can immediately stop the entity, but it will be positioned in the "wrong" spot until it moves again. If I estimate a vector or try to interpolate, I have an issue because I don't store the previous state - the physics engine has no way to say "you need to stop after you reach position X". It simply understands a velocity, nothing more complex. I'm reluctant to add the "packet movement state" information to the entities or physics engine, since it violates basic design principles and bleeds network code across the rest of the game engine. What should happen when entities collide? There are three scenarios - the controlling player collides locally, two entities collide on the server during a position update, or a remote entity update collides on the local client. In all cases I'm uncertain how to handle the collision - aside from cheating, both states are "correct" but at different time periods. In the case of a remote entity it doesn't make sense to draw it walking through a wall, so I perform collision detection on the local client and cause it to "stop". Based on point #2 above, I might compute a "corrected vector" that continually tries to move the entity "through the wall" which will never succeed - the remote avatar is stuck there until the error gets too high and it "snaps" into position. How do games work around this?

  Read the article

• Rapid Evolution of Society & Technology

  - by Michael Snow

  We caught up with Brian Solis on the phone the other day and Christie Flanagan had a chance to chat with him and learn a bit more about him and some of the concepts he'll be addressing in our Social Business Thought Leaders Webcast on Thursday 12/13/12. «--- Interview with Brian Solis  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* 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:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast- mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Be sure and register for this week's webcast ---» ------------------- Guest post by Brian Solis. Reposted (Borrowed) from his posting of May 24, 2012 Dear [insert business name], what’s your promise? - Brian Solis You say you want to get closer to customers, but your actions are different than your words. You say you want to “surprise and delight” customers, but your product development teams are too busy building against a roadmap without consideration of the 5th P of marketing…people. Your employees are your number one asset, however the infrastructure of the organization has turned once optimistic and ambitious intrapreneurs into complacent cogs or worse, your greatest detractors. You question the adoption of disruptive technology by your internal champions yet you’ve not tried to find the value for yourself. You’re a change agent and you truly wish to bring about change, but you’ve not invested time or resources to answer “why” in your endeavors to become a connected or social business. If we are to truly change, we must find purpose. We must uncover the essence of our business and the value it delivers to traditional and connected consumers. We must rethink the spirit of today’s embrace and clearly articulate how transformation is going to improve customer and employee experiences and relationships now and over time. Without doing so, any attempts at evolution will be thwarted by reality. In an era of Digital Darwinism, no business is too big to fail or too small to succeed. These are undisciplined times which require alternative approaches to recognize and pursue new opportunities. But everything begins with acknowledging the 360 view of the world that you see today is actually a filtered view of managed and efficient convenience. Today, many organizations that were once inspired by innovation and engagement have fallen into a process of marketing, operationalizing, managing, and optimizing. That might have worked for the better part of the last century, but for the next 10 years and beyond, new vision, leadership and supporting business models will be written to move businesses from rigid frameworks to adaptive and agile entities. I believe that today’s executives will undergo a great test; a test of character, vision, intention, and universal leadership. It starts with a simple, but essential question…what is your promise? Notice, I didn’t ask about your brand promise. Nor did I ask for you to cite your mission and vision statements. This is much more than value propositions or manufactured marketing language designed to hook audiences and stakeholders. I asked for your promise to me as your consumer, stakeholder, and partner. This isn’t about B2B or B2C, but instead, people to people, person to person. It is this promise that will breathe new life into an organization that on the outside, could be misdiagnosed as catatonic by those who are disrupting your markets. A promise, for example, is meant to inspire. It creates alignment. It serves as the foundation for your vision, mission, and all business strategies and it must come from the top to mean anything. For without it, we cannot genuinely voice what it is we stand for or stand behind. Think for a moment about the definition of community. It’s easy to confuse a workplace or a market where everyone simply shares common characteristics. However, a community in this day and age is much more than belonging to something, it’s about doing something together that makes belonging matter The next few years will force a divide where companies are separated by intention as measured by actions and words. But, becoming a social business is not enough. Becoming more authentic and transparent doesn’t serve as a mantra for a renaissance. A promise is the ink that inscribes the spirit of the relationship between you and me. A promise serves as the words that influence change from within and change beyond the halls of our business. It is the foundation for a renewed embrace, one that must then find its way to every aspect of the organization. It’s the difference between a social business and an adaptive business. While an adaptive business can also be social, it is the culture of the organization that strives to not just use technology to extend current philosophies or processes into new domains, but instead give rise to a new culture where striving for relevance is among its goals. The tools and networks simply become enablers of a greater mission You are reading this because you believe in something more than what you’re doing today. While you fight for change within your organization, remember to aim for a higher purpose. Organizations that strive for innovation, imagination, and relevance will outperform those that do not. Part of your job is to lead a missionary push that unites the groundswell with a top down cascade. Change will only happen because you and other internal champions see what others can’t and will do what other won’t. It takes resolve. It takes the ability to translate new opportunities into business value. And, it takes courage. “This is a very noisy world, so we have to be very clear what we want them to know about us”-Steve Jobs ----------------------------------------------------------------- So -- where do you begin to evaluate the kind of experience you are delivering for your customers, partners, and employees?  Take a look at this White Paper: Creating a Successful and Meaningful Customer Experience on the Web and then have a cup of coffee while you listen to the sage advice of Guy Kawasaki in a short video below.   An interview with Guy Kawasaki on Maximizing Social Media Channels 

  Read the article

• DRY and SRP

  - by Timothy Klenke

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TimothyK/archive/2014/06/11/dry-and-srp.aspxKent Beck’s XP Simplicity Rules (aka Four Rules of Simple Design) are a prioritized list of rules that when applied to your code generally yield a great design.  As you’ll see from the above link the list has slightly evolved over time.  I find today they are usually listed as: All Tests Pass Don’t Repeat Yourself (DRY) Express Intent Minimalistic These are prioritized.  If your code doesn’t work (rule 1) then everything else is forfeit.  Go back to rule one and get the code working before worrying about anything else. Over the years the community have debated whether the priority of rules 2 and 3 should be reversed.  Some say a little duplication in the code is OK as long as it helps express intent.  I’ve debated it myself.  This recent post got me thinking about this again, hence this post.   I don’t think it is fair to compare “Expressing Intent” against “DRY”.  This is a comparison of apples to oranges.  “Expressing Intent” is a principal of code quality.  “Repeating Yourself” is a code smell.  A code smell is merely an indicator that there might be something wrong with the code.  It takes further investigation to determine if a violation of an underlying principal of code quality has actually occurred. For example “using nouns for method names”, “using verbs for property names”, or “using Booleans for parameters” are all code smells that indicate that code probably isn’t doing a good job at expressing intent.  They are usually very good indicators.  But what principle is the code smell of Duplication pointing to and how good of an indicator is it? Duplication in the code base is bad for a couple reasons.  If you need to make a change and that needs to be made in a number of locations it is difficult to know if you have caught all of them.  This can lead to bugs if/when one of those locations is overlooked.  By refactoring the code to remove all duplication there will be left with only one place to change, thereby eliminating this problem. With most projects the code becomes the single source of truth for a project.  If a production code base is inconsistent with a five year old requirements or design document the production code that people are currently living with is usually declared as the current reality (or truth).  Requirement or design documents at this age in a project life cycle are usually of little value. Although comparing production code to external documentation is usually straight forward, duplication within the code base muddles this declaration of truth.  When code is duplicated small discrepancies will creep in between the two copies over time.  The question then becomes which copy is correct?  As different factions debate how the software should work, trust in the software and the team behind it erodes. The code smell of Duplication points to a violation of the “Single Source of Truth” principle.  Let me define that as: A stakeholder’s requirement for a software change should never cause more than one class to change. Violation of the Single Source of Truth principle will always result in duplication in the code.  However, the inverse is not always true.  Duplication in the code does not necessarily indicate that there is a violation of the Single Source of Truth principle. To illustrate this, let’s look at a retail system where the system will (1) send a transaction to a bank and (2) print a receipt for the customer.  Although these are two separate features of the system, they are closely related.  The reason for printing the receipt is usually to provide an audit trail back to the bank transaction.  Both features use the same data:  amount charged, account number, transaction date, customer name, retail store name, and etcetera.  Because both features use much of the same data, there is likely to be a lot of duplication between them.  This duplication can be removed by making both features use the same data access layer. Then start coming the divergent requirements.  The receipt stakeholder wants a change so that the account number has the last few digits masked out to protect the customer’s privacy.  That can be solve with a small IF statement whilst still eliminating all duplication in the system.  Then the bank wants to take a picture of the customer as well as capture their signature and/or PIN number for enhanced security.  Then the receipt owner wants to pull data from a completely different system to report the customer’s loyalty program point total. After a while you realize that the two stakeholders have somewhat similar, but ultimately different responsibilities.  They have their own reasons for pulling the data access layer in different directions.  Then it dawns on you, the Single Responsibility Principle: There should never be more than one reason for a class to change. In this example we have two stakeholders giving two separate reasons for the data access class to change.  It is clear violation of the Single Responsibility Principle.  That’s a problem because it can often lead the project owner pitting the two stakeholders against each other in a vein attempt to get them to work out a mutual single source of truth.  But that doesn’t exist.  There are two completely valid truths that the developers need to support.  How is this to be supported and honour the Single Responsibility Principle?  The solution is to duplicate the data access layer and let each stakeholder control their own copy. The Single Source of Truth and Single Responsibility Principles are very closely related.  SST tells you when to remove duplication; SRP tells you when to introduce it.  They may seem to be fighting each other, but really they are not.  The key is to clearly identify the different responsibilities (or sources of truth) over a system.  Sometimes there is a single person with that responsibility, other times there are many.  This can be especially difficult if the same person has dual responsibilities.  They might not even realize they are wearing multiple hats. In my opinion Single Source of Truth should be listed as the second rule of simple design with Express Intent at number three.  Investigation of the DRY code smell should yield to the proper application SST, without violating SRP.  When necessary leave duplication in the system and let the class names express the different people that are responsible for controlling them.  Knowing all the people with responsibilities over a system is the higher priority because you’ll need to know this before you can express it.  Although it may be a code smell when there is duplication in the code, it does not necessarily mean that the coder has chosen to be expressive over DRY or that the code is bad.

  Read the article

• Refactoring Part 1 : Intuitive Investments

  - by Wes McClure

  Fear, it’s what turns maintaining applications into a nightmare.  Technology moves on, teams move on, someone is left to operate the application, what was green is now perceived brown.  Eventually the business will evolve and changes will need to be made.  The approach to those changes often dictates the long term viability of the application.  Fear of change, lack of passion and a lack of interest in understanding the domain often leads to a paranoia to do anything that doesn’t involve duct tape and bailing twine.  Don’t get me wrong, those have a place in the short term viability of a project but they don’t have a place in the long term.  Add to it “us versus them” in regards to the original team and those that maintain it, internal politics and other factors and you have a recipe for disaster.  This results in code that quickly becomes unmanageable.  Even the most clever of designs will eventually become sub optimal and debt will amount that exponentially makes changes difficult.  This is where refactoring comes in, and it’s something I’m very passionate about.  Refactoring is about improving the process whereby we make change, it’s an exponential investment in the process of change. Without it we will incur exponential complexity that halts productivity. Investments, especially in the long term, require intuition and reflection.  How can we tackle new development effectively via evolving the original design and paying off debt that has been incurred? The longer we wait to ask and answer this question, the more it will cost us.  Small requests don’t warrant big changes, but realizing when changes now will pay off in the long term, and especially in the short term, is valuable. I have done my fair share of maintaining applications and continuously refactoring as needed, but recently I’ve begun work on a project that hasn’t had much debt, if any, paid down in years.  This is the first in a series of blog posts to try to capture the process which is largely driven by intuition of smaller refactorings from other projects. Signs that refactoring could help: Testability How can decreasing test time not pay dividends? One of the first things I found was that a very important piece often takes 30+ minutes to test.  I can only imagine how much time this has cost historically, but more importantly the time it might cost in the coming weeks: I estimate at least 10-20 hours per person!  This is simply unacceptable for almost any situation.  As it turns out, about 6 hours of working with this part of the application and I was able to cut the time down to under 30 seconds!  In less than the lost time of one week, I was able to fix the problem for all future weeks! If we can’t test fast then we can’t change fast, nor with confidence. Code is used by end users and it’s also used by developers, consider your own needs in terms of the code base.  Adding logic to enable/disable features during testing can help decouple parts of an application and lead to massive improvements.  What exactly is so wrong about test code in real code?  Often, these become features for operators and sometimes end users.  If you cannot run an integration test within a test runner in your IDE, it’s time to refactor. Readability Are variables named meaningfully via a ubiquitous language? Is the code segmented functionally or behaviorally so as to minimize the complexity of any one area? Are aspects properly segmented to avoid confusion (security, logging, transactions, translations, dependency management etc) Is the code declarative (what) or imperative (how)?  What matters, not how.  LINQ is a great abstraction of the what, not how, of collection manipulation.  The Reactive framework is a great example of the what, not how, of managing streams of data. Are constants abstracted and named, or are they just inline? Do people constantly bitch about the code/design? If the code is hard to understand, it will be hard to change with confidence.  It’s a large undertaking if the original designers didn’t pay much attention to readability and as such will never be done to “completion.”  Make sure not to go over board, instead use this as you change an application, not in lieu of changes (like with testability). Complexity Simplicity will never be achieved, it’s highly subjective.  That said, a lot of code can be significantly simplified, tidy it up as you go.  Refactoring will often converge upon a simplification step after enough time, keep an eye out for this. Understandability In the process of changing code, one often gains a better understanding of it.  Refactoring code is a good way to learn how it works.  However, it’s usually best in combination with other reasons, in effect killing two birds with one stone.  Often this is done when readability is poor, in which case understandability is usually poor as well.  In the large undertaking we are making with this legacy application, we will be replacing it.  Therefore, understanding all of its features is important and this refactoring technique will come in very handy. Unused code How can deleting things not help? This is a freebie in refactoring, it’s very easy to detect with modern tools, especially in statically typed languages.  We have VCS for a reason, if in doubt, delete it out (ok that was cheesy)! If you don’t know where to start when refactoring, this is an excellent starting point! Duplication Do not pray and sacrifice to the anti-duplication gods, there are excellent examples where consolidated code is a horrible idea, usually with divergent domains.  That said, mediocre developers live by copy/paste.  Other times features converge and aren’t combined.  Tools for finding similar code are great in the example of copy/paste problems.  Knowledge of the domain helps identify convergent concepts that often lead to convergent solutions and will give intuition for where to look for conceptual repetition. 80/20 and the Boy Scouts It’s often said that 80% of the time 20% of the application is used most.  These tend to be the parts that are changed.  There are also parts of the code where 80% of the time is spent changing 20% (probably for all the refactoring smells above).  I focus on these areas any time I make a change and follow the philosophy of the Boy Scout in cleaning up more than I messed up.  If I spend 2 hours changing an application, in the 20%, I’ll always spend at least 15 minutes cleaning it or nearby areas. This gives a huge productivity edge on developers that don’t. Ironically after a short period of time the 20% shrinks enough that we don’t have to spend 80% of our time there and can move on to other areas.   Refactoring is highly subjective, never attempt to refactor to completion!  Learn to be comfortable with leaving one part of the application in a better state than others.  It’s an evolution, not a revolution.  These are some simple areas to look into when making changes and can help get one started in the process.  I’ve often found that refactoring is a convergent process towards simplicity that sometimes spans a few hours but often can lead to massive simplifications over the timespan of weeks and months of regular development.

  Read the article

• Adding A Custom Dropdown in RCDC for Forefront Identity Manager 2010

  - by Daniel Lackey

  My latest exploration has been FIM 2010 for Identity Management. The following is a post of how to add a custom dropdown for the FIM Portal. I have decided to document this as I cannot find documentation on how to do this anywhere else. I hope that it finds useful to others.   For starters, this was to me not an easy task to figure out. I really would like to know why it is so cumbersome to do something that seems like a lot of people would need to do, but that’s for another day J   The dropdown I wanted to add was for ‘Account Status’ which would display if the account is ‘Enabled’ or ‘Disabled’ in the data source Active Directory. This option would also allow helpdesk users or admins to administer the userAccountControl attribute in AD from the FIM Portal interface.   The first thing I had to do was create the attribute itself. This is done by going to Administration à Schema Management from the FIM 2010 portal. Once here, you click on All Attributes. What is listed here are all attributes and their associated Resource Types in FIM. To create the ‘AccountStatus’ attribute, click on New. As shown below, enter ‘AccountStatus’ with no spaces for the System Name and ‘Account Status’ for the Display Name. The Data Type is going to be ‘Indexed String’. Click Next.           Leave everything on the Localization tab default and click Next.   On the Validation tab as shown below, we will enter the regex expression ^(Enabled|Disabled)?$ with our two desired string values ‘Enabled’ and ‘Disabled’. Click on Finish and then and Submit to complete adding the attribute.       The next step involves associating the attribute with a resource type. This is called ‘Binding’ the attribute. From the Schema Management page, click on All Bindings. From the page that comes up, click on New. As shown below, enter ‘User’ for the Resource Type and ‘Account Status’ for the Attribute Type. This is essentially binding the Account Status attribute to the ‘User’ Resource Type. Click Next.    On the ‘Attribute Override’ tab, type in ‘Account Status’ for the Display Name field. Click Next.   On the ‘Localization’ tab, click Next.   On the ‘Validation’ tab, enter the regex expression ^(Enabled|Disabled)?$ we entered previously for the attribute. Click Finish and then Submit to complete.   Now that the Attribute and the Binding are complete, you have to give users permission to see the attribute on the User Edit page. Go to Administration à Management Policy Rules. Look for the rule named Administration: Administrators can read and update Users and click on it. Once it opens, click on the ‘Target Resources’ tab and look at the section named Resource Attributes. Type in at the end the ‘Account Status’ attribute and check it with the validator. Once done click on OK to save the changes.         Lastly, we need to add the actual dropdown control to the RCDC (Resource Control Display Configuration) for User Editing. Go to Administration à Resource Control Display Configuration. From here navigate until you find the RCDC named Configuration for User Editing RCDC and click on it. The following is what you will see:       First step is to export the Configuration Data file. Click on the Export configuration link and save the file to your desktop of other folder.   Find the file you just exported and open the file in your XML editor of choice. I use notepad but anything will work. Since we are adding a dropdown control, first find another control in the existing file that is already a dropdown in FIM. I used EmployeeType as my example. Copy the control from the beginning tag named <my:Control… to the ending tag </my:Control>. Now take what you copied and paste it in whatever location you desire within the form between two other controls. I chose to place the ‘Account Status’ field after the ‘Account Name’ field. After you paste the control you will need to modify so it looks like this:       Notice where you specify what attribute you are dealing with where it has AccountStatus in the XML. Once you are complete with modifying this, save the file and make sure it is a .xml file.   Now go back to the Configuration for User Editing screen and look at the section named ‘Configuration Data’. Click the ‘Browse’ button and find the XML file you just modified and choose it. Click OK on the bottom of the window and you are done!   Now when you click on a user’s name in the FIM Portal, you should see the newly added dropdown box as below:       Later I will post more about this drop down, specifically on how to automate actually ‘Disabling’ the account in the data source through the FIM Workflows and MAs.   <my:Control my:Name="AccountStatus" my:TypeName="UocDropDownList" my:Caption="{Binding Source=schema, Path=AccountStatus.DisplayName}" my:Description="{Binding Source=schema, Path=AccountStatus.Description}" my:RightsLevel="{Binding Source=rights, Path=AccountStatus}"> <my:Properties> <my:Property my:Name="ValuePath" my:Value="Value"/> <my:Property my:Name="CaptionPath" my:Value="Caption"/> <my:Property my:Name="HintPath" my:Value="Hint"/> <my:Property my:Name="ItemSource" my:Value="{Binding Source=schema, Path=AccountStatus.LocalizedAllowedValues}"/> <my:Property my:Name="SelectedValue" my:Value="{Binding Source=object, Path=AccountStatus, Mode=TwoWay}"/> </my:Properties> </my:Control>

  Read the article

• How to Animate Text and Objects in PowerPoint 2010

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Are you looking for an eye catching way to keep your audience interested in your PowerPoint presentations? Today we’ll take a look at how to add animation effects to objects in PowerPoint 2010. Select the object you wish to animate and then click the More button in the Animation group of the Animation tab.   Animations are grouped into four categories. Entrance effects, Exit effects, Emphasis effects, and Motion Paths. You can get a Live Preview of how the animation will look by hovering your mouse over an animation effect.   When you select a Motion Path, your object will move along the dashed path line as shown on the screen. (This path is not displayed in the final output) Certain aspects of the Motion Path effects are editable. When you apply a Motion Path animation to an object, you can select the path and drag the end to change the length or size of the path. The green marker along the motion path marks the beginning of the  path and the red marks the end. The effects can be rotated by clicking and the bar near the center of the effect.   You can display additional effects by choosing one of the options at the bottom. This will pop up a Change Effect window. If you have Preview Effect checked at the lower left you can preview the effects by single clicking.   Apply Multiple Animations to an Object Select the object and then click the Add Animation button to display the animation effects. Just as we did with the first effect, you can hover over to get a live preview. Click to apply the effect. The animation effects will happen in the order they are applied. Animation Pane You can view a list of the animations applied to a slide by opening the Animation Pane. Select the Animation Pane button from the Advanced Animation group to display the Animation Pane on the right. You’ll see that each animation effect in the animation pane has an assigned number to the left.    Timing Animation Effects You can change when your animation starts to play. By default it is On Click. To change it, select the effect in the Animation Pane and then choose one of the options from the Start dropdown list. With Previous starts at the same time as the previous animation and After Previous starts after the last animation. You can also edit the duration that the animations plays and also set a delay.   You can change the order in which the animation effects are applied by selecting the effect in the animation pane and clicking Move Earlier or Move Later from the Timing group on the Animation tab. Effect Options If the Effect Options button is available when your animation is selected, then that particular animation has some additional effect settings that can be configured. You can access the Effect Option by right-clicking on the the animation in the Animation Pane, or by selecting Effect Options on the ribbon.   The available options will vary by effect and not all animation effects will have Effect Options settings. In the example below, you can change the amount of spinning and whether the object will spin clockwise or counterclockwise.   Under Enhancements, you can add sound effects to your animation. When you’re finished click OK.   Animating Text Animating Text works the same as animating an object. Simply select your text box and choose an animation. Text does have some different Effect Options. By selecting a sequence, you decide whether the text appears as one object, all at once, or by paragraph. As is the case with objects, there will be different available Effect Options depending on the animation you choose. Some animations, such as the Fly In animation, will have directional options.   Testing Your Animations Click on the Preview button at any time to test how your animations look. You can also select the Play button on the Animation Pane. Conclusion Animation effects are a great way to focus audience attention on important points and hold viewers interest in your PowerPoint presentations. Another cool way to spice up your PPT 2010 presentations is to add video from the web. What tips do you guys have for making your PowerPoint presentations more interesting? Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Center Pictures and Other Objects in Office 2007 & 2010Preview Before You Paste with Live Preview in Office 2010Embed True Type Fonts in Word and PowerPoint 2007 DocumentsHow to Add Video from the Web in PowerPoint 2010Add Artistic Effects to Your Pictures in Office 2010 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 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 24 Million Sites Windows Media Player Glass Icons (icons we like) How to Forecast Weather, without Gadgets Outlook Tools, one stop tweaking for any Outlook version Zoofs, find the most popular tweeted YouTube videos Video preview of new Windows Live Essentials

  Read the article

• Issue 15: Oracle PartnerNetwork Exchange @ Oracle OpenWorld

  - by rituchhibber

       ORACLE FOCUS Oracle PartnerNetwork Exchange@ ORACLE OpenWorld Sylvie MichouSenior DirectorPartner Marketing & Communications and Strategic Programs RESOURCES -- Oracle OpenWorld 2012 Oracle PartnerNetwork Exchange @ OpenWorld Oracle PartnerNetwork Exchange @ OpenWorld Registration Oracle PartnerNetwork Exchange SpecializationTest Fest Oracle OpenWorld Schedule Builder Oracle OpenWorld Promotional Toolkit for Partners Oracle Partner Events Oracle Partner Webcasts Oracle EMEA Partner News SUBSCRIBE FEEDBACK PREVIOUS ISSUES If you are attending our forthcoming Oracle OpenWorld 2012 conference in San Francisco from 30 September to 4 October, you will discover a new dedicated programme of keynotes and sessions tailored especially for you, our valued partners. Oracle PartnerNetwork Exchange @ OpenWorld has been created to enhance the opportunities for you to learn from and network with Oracle executives and experts. The programme also provides more informal opportunities than ever throughout the week to meet up with the people who are most important to your business: customers, prospects, colleagues and the Oracle EMEA Alliances & Channels management team. Oracle remains fully focused on building the industry's most admired partner ecosystem—which today spans over 25,000 partners. This new OPN Exchange programme offers an exciting change of pace for partners throughout the conference. Now it will be possible to enjoy a fully-integrated, partner-dedicated session schedule throughout the week, as well as key social events such as the Sunday night Welcome Reception, networking lunches from Monday to Thursday at the Howard Street Tent, and a fantastic closing event on the last Thursday afternoon. In addition to the regular Oracle OpenWorld conference schedule, if you have registered for the Oracle PartnerNetwork Exchange @ OpenWorld programme, you will be invited to attend a much anticipated global partner keynote presentation, plus more than 40 conference sessions aimed squarely at what's most important to you, as partners. Prominent topics for discussion will include: Oracle technologies and roadmaps and how they fit with partners' business plans; business development; regional distinctions in business practices; and much more. Each session will provide plenty of food for thought ahead of the numerous networking opportunities throughout the week, encouraging the knowledge exchange with Oracle executives, customers, prospects, and colleagues that will make this conference of even greater value for you. At Oracle we always work closely with our partners to deliver solution offerings that improve business value, simplify the IT experience and drive innovation and efficiencies for joint customers. The most important element of our new OPN Exchange is content that helps you get more from technology investments, more from your peer-to-peer connections, and more from your interactions with customers. To this end we've created some partner-specific tools which can be used by OPN members ahead of the conference itself. Crucially, a comprehensive Content Catalog already lists and organises details of every OPN Exchange session, speaker, exhibitor, demonstration and related materials. This Content Catalog can be used by all our partners to identify interesting content that you can add to your own personalised Oracle OpenWorld Schedule Builder, allowing more effective planning and pre-enrolment for vital sessions. There are numerous highlights that you will definitely want to include in those personal schedules. On Sunday morning, 30 September we will start the week with partner dedicated OPN Exchange sessions, following our Global Partner Keynote at 13:00 with Judson Althoff, SVP, Worldwide Alliances & Channels and Embedded Sales and senior executives, giving insight into Oracle's partner vision, strategy, and resources—all designed to help build and strengthen market opportunities for you. This will be followed by a number of OPN Exchange general sessions, the Oracle OpenWorld Opening Keynote with Larry Ellison, CEO, Oracle and concluded with the OPN Exchange AfterDark Welcome Reception, starting at 19:30 at the Metreon. From Monday 1 to Thursday 4 October, you can attend the OPN Exchange sessions that are most relevant to your business today and over the coming year. Oracle's top product and sales leaders will be on hand to discuss Oracle's strategic direction in 40+ targeted and in-depth sessions focussing on critical success factors to develop your business. Oracle's dedication to innovation, specialization, enablement and engineering provides Oracle partners with a huge opportunity to create new services and solutions, differentiate themselves and deliver extreme value to joint customers across the globe. Oracle will even be helping over 1000 partners to earn OPN Specialization certification during the Oracle OpenWorld OPN Exchange Test Fest, which will be providing all the study materials and exams required to drive Specialization for free at the conference. You simply need to check the list of current certification tracks available, and make sure you pre-register to reserve a seat in one of the ten sessions being offered free to OPN Exchange registered attendees. And finally, let's not forget those all-important networking opportunities, which can so often provide partners with valuable long-term alliances as well as exciting new business leads. The Oracle PartnerNetwork Lounge, located at Moscone South, exhibition hall, room 100 is the place where partners can meet formally or informally with colleagues, customers, prospects, and other industry professionals. OPN Specialized partners with OPN Exchange passes can also visit the OPN Video Blogging room to record and share ideas, and at the OPN Information Station you will find consultants available to answer your questions. "For the first time ever we will have a full partner conference within OpenWorld. OPN Exchange @ OpenWorld will kick-off on the first Sunday and run the entire week. We'll have over 40 sessions throughout that time and partners will hear from our top development executives, with special sessions dedicated to partnering throughout. It's going to be a phenomenal event, and we look forward to seeing our partners there." Judson Althoff, SVP, Oracle Worldwide Alliances & Channels and Embedded Sales So if you haven't done so already, please register for Oracle PartnerNetwork Exchange @ OpenWorld today or add OPN Exchange to your existing registration for just $100 through My Account. And if you have any further questions regarding partner activities at Oracle OpenWorld, please don't hesitate to contact the Oracle PartnerNetwork team at [email protected] will be on hand to share the very latest information about: Oracle's SPARC Superclusters: the latest Engineered Systems from Oracle, delivering radically improved performance, faster deployment and greatly reduced operational costs for mixed database and enterprise application consolidation Oracle's SPARC T4 servers: with the newly developed T4 processor and Oracle Solaris providing up to five times the single threaded performance and better overall system throughput for expanded application versatility Oracle Database Appliance: a new way to take advantage of the world's most popular database, Oracle Database 11g, in a single, easy-to-deploy and manage system. It's a complete package engineered to deliver simple, reliable and affordable database services to small and medium size businesses and departmental systems. All hardware and software components are supported together and offer customers unique pay-as-you-grow software licensing to quickly scale from two to 24 processor cores without incurring the costs and downtime usually associated with hardware upgrades Oracle Exalogic: the world's only integrated cloud machine, featuring server hardware and middleware software engineered together for maximum performance with minimum set-up and operational cost Oracle Exadata Database Machine: the only database machine that provides extreme performance for both data warehousing and online transaction processing (OLTP) applications, making it the ideal platform for consolidating onto grids or private clouds. It is a complete package of servers, storage, networking and software that is massively scalable, secure and redundant Oracle Sun ZFS Storage Appliances: providing enterprise-class NAS performance, price-performance, manageability and TCO by combining third-generation software with high-performance controllers, flash-based caches and disks Oracle Pillar Axiom Quality-of-Service: confidently consolidate storage for multiple applications into a single datacentre storage solution Oracle Solaris 11: delivering secure enterprise cloud deployments with the ability to run hundreds of virtual application with no overhead and co-engineered with other Oracle software products to provide the highest levels of security, manageability and performance Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c: Oracle's integrated enterprise IT management product, providing the industry's only complete, integrated and business-driven enterprise cloud management solution Oracle VM 3.0: the latest release of Oracle's server virtualisation and management solution, helping to move datacentres beyond server consolidation to improve application deployment and management. Register today and ensure your place at the Extreme Performance Tour! Extreme Performance Tour events are free to attend, but places are limited. To make sure that you don't miss out, please visit Oracle's Extreme Performance Tour website, select the city that you'd be interest in attending an event in, and then click on the 'Register Now' button for that city to secure your interest. Each individual city page also contains more in-depth information about your local event, including logistics, agenda and maybe even a preview of VIP guest speakers. -- Oracle OpenWorld 2010 Whether you attended Oracle OpenWorld 2009 or not, don't forget to save the date now for Oracle OpenWorld 2010. The event will be held a little earlier next year, from 19th-23rd September, so please don't miss out. With thousands of sessions and hundreds of exhibits and demos already lined up, there's no better place to learn how to optimise your existing systems, get an inside line on upcoming technology breakthroughs, and meet with your partner peers, Oracle strategists and even the developers responsible for the products and services that help you get better results for your end customers. Register Now for Oracle OpenWorld 2010! Perhaps you are interested in learning more about Oracle OpenWorld 2010, but don't wish to register at this time? Great! Please just enter your contact information here and we will contact you at a later date. How to Exhibit at Oracle OpenWorld 2010 Sponsorship Opportunities at Oracle OpenWorld 2010 Advertising Opportunities at Oracle OpenWorld 2010 -- Back to the welcome page

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389  | Next Page >