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• How to access files on a drive from an older system, mounted in a new system?

  - by David Thomas

  I've recently built a new system, after a rather large physical injury was sustained by my previous system (a precarious balance, and gravity, were not a happy mix). Surprisingly the /home drive of that system appears to have more-or-less survived the trauma. However... I decided to use a fresh drive for / (and swap) partition(s), and another fresh drive for the new /home. Now that's working, I decided to install the old /home drive (that I had assumed until now would be entirely dead and without capacity for use) into the new system to recover the files and data (so far as is possible). At this point I've run into a snag: I have no idea how to go about this (with Windows it was relatively easy, the new drive would be the latest character of the alphabet, and go from there). With 'disk utility' (System - Administration - Disk Utitlity) I've worked out which drive it is (/dev/sda) but clicking on 'mount' produces an error: 1: helper failed with: mount: according to mtab, /dev/sdb1 is already mounted on / mount failed ...if it is mounted on / I can't see it. I'm also moderately confused by the disk (device /dev/sda) being referred to as /dev/sdb1. Any and all insights would be incredibly welcome (I've already voted for: Idea #9063: New internal hard drives default automount at Brainstorm). Edited in response to Roland's request for a screenshot of disk utility: Details (so far as I know them): 40GB disk is / and swap, 1.0 TB Samsung is /home 1.0 TB Hitachi is from the old system (and was the old /home drive). Output from sudo fdisk -l pasted below: Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x000bef00 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 1 121601 976760001 83 Linux Disk /dev/sdb: 40.0 GB, 40018599936 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00037652 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdb1 * 1 4742 38084608 83 Linux /dev/sdb2 4742 4866 993281 5 Extended /dev/sdb5 4742 4866 993280 82 Linux swap / Solaris Disk /dev/sdc: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x000e8d46 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdc1 1 121602 976760832 83 Linux

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• Using MVC with a retained mode renderer

  - by David Gouveia

  I am using a retained mode renderer similar to the display lists in Flash. In other words, I have a scene graph data structure called the Stage to which I add the graphical primitives I would like to see rendered, such as images, animations, text. For simplicity I'll refer to them as Sprites. Now I'm implementing an architecture which is becoming very similar to MVC, but I feel that that instead of having to create View classes, that the sprites already behave pretty much like Views (except for not being explicitly connected to the Model). And since the Model is only changed through the Controller, I could simply update the view together with the Model in the controller, as in the example below: Example 1 class Controller { Model model; Sprite view; void TeleportTo(Vector2 position) { model.Position = view.Position = position; } } The alternative, I think, would be to create View classes that wrap the sprites, make the model observable, and make the view react to changes on the model. This seems like a lot of extra work and boilerplate code, and I'm not seeing the benefits if I'm just going to have one view per controller. Example 2 class Controller { Model model; View view; void TeleportTo(Vector2 position) { model.Position = position; } } class View { Model model; Sprite sprite; View() { model.PropertyChanged += UpdateView; } void UpdateView() { sprite.Position = model.Position; } } So, how is MVC or more specifically, the View, usually implemented when using a retained-mode renderer? And is there any reason why I shouldn't stick with example 1?

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• The Iron Bird Approach

  - by David Paquette

  It turns out that designing software is not so different than designing commercial aircraft.  I just finished watching a video that talked about the approach that Bombardier is taking in designing the new C Series aircraft.  I was struck by the similarities to agile approaches to software design.  In the video, Bombardier describes how they are using an Iron Bird to work through a number of design questions in advance of ever having a version of the aircraft that can ever be flown.  The Iron Bird is a life size replica of the plane.  Based on the name, I would assume the plane is built in a very heavy material that could never fly.  Using this replica, Bombardier is able to valid certain assumptions such as the length of each wire in the electric system.  They are also able to confirm that some parts are working properly (like the rudders).  They even go as far as to have a complete replica of the cockpit.  This allows Bombardier to put pilots in the cockpit to run through simulated take-off and landing sequences. The basic tenant of the approach seems to be Validate your design early with working prototypes Get feedback from users early, well in advance of finishing the end product   In software development, we tend to think of ourselves as special.  I often tell people that it is difficult to draw comparisons to building items in the physical world (“Building software is nothing like building a sky scraper”).  After watching this video, I am wondering if designing/building software is actually a lot like designing/building commercial aircraft.   Watch the video here (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/video/video-selling-the-c-series/article4400616/)

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• How to approach big developer companies if I have a killer game idea? (for mobile devices)

  - by Balázs Dávid

  I have an idea for a game that has a potential, but I'm not a programmer. How to tell this to development companies without being my idea stolen? All I want from the company is first to watch a 3-minute long video presentation about my idea and if they see fantasy in it then we can talk about the details. I have already sent an e-mail to several big companies that have the expertise needed to code the game, they haven't answer me. Actually the idea is nothing fancy, no 3D, but fun and unique.

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• How exactly does XNA's SpriteBatch work?

  - by David Gouveia

  To be more precise, if I needed to recreate this functionality from scratch in another API (e.g. in OpenGL) what would it need to be capable of doing? I do have a general idea of some of the steps, such as how it prepares an orthographic projection matrix and creates a quad for each draw call. I'm not too familiar, however, with the batching process itself. Are all quads stored in the same vertex buffer? Does it need an index buffer? How are different textures handled? If possible I'd be grateful if you could guide me through the process from when SpriteBatch.Begin() is called until SpriteBatch.End(), at least when using the default Deferred mode.

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• Defaulting the HLSL Vertex and Pixel Shader Levels to Feature Level 9_1 in VS 2012

  - by Michael B. McLaughlin

  I love Visual Studio 2012. But this is not a post about that. This is a post about tweaking one particular parameter that I’ve found a bit annoying. Disclaimer: You will be modifying important MSBuild files. If you screw up you will break your build tools. And maybe your computer will catch fire. I’m not responsible. No warranties or guaranties of any sort. This info is provided “as is”. By default, if you add a new vertex shader or pixel shader item to a project, it will be set to build with shader profile 4.0_level_9_3. If you need 9_3 functionality, this is all well and good. But (especially for Windows Store apps) you really want to target the lowest shader profile possible so that your game will run on as many computers as possible. So it’s a good idea to default to 9_1. To do this you could add in new HLSL files via “Add->New Item->Visual C++->HLSL->______ Shader File (.hlsl)” and then edit the shader files’ properties to set them manually to use 9_1 via “Properties->HLSL Compiler->General->Shader Model”. This is fine unless you forget to do this once and then submit your game with 9_3 shaders instead of 9_1 shaders to the Windows Store or to some other game store. Then you’d wind up with either rejection or angry “this doesn’t work on my computer! ripoff!” messages. There’s another option though. In “Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\ItemTemplates\VC\HLSL\1033\VertexShader” (note the path might vary slightly for you if you are using a 32-bit system or have a non-ENU version of Visual Studio 2012) you will find a “VertexShader.vstemplate” file. If you open this file in a text editor (e.g. Notepad++), then inside the CustomParameters tag within the TemplateContent tag you should see a CustomParameter tag for the ShaderType, i.e.: <CustomParameter Name="$ShaderType$" Value="Vertex"/> On a new line, we are going to add another CustomParameter tag to the CustomParameters tag. It will look like this: <CustomParameter Name="$ShaderModel$" Value="4.0_level_9_1"/> such that we now have:     <CustomParameters>       <CustomParameter Name="$ShaderType$" Value="Vertex"/>       <CustomParameter Name="$ShaderModel$" Value="4.0_level_9_1"/>     </CustomParameters> You can then save the file (you will need to be an Administrator or have Administrator access). Back in the 1033 directory (or whatever the number is for your language), go into the “PixelShader” directory. Edit the “PixelShader.vstemplate” file and make the same change (note that this time $ShaderType$ is “Pixel” not “Vertex”; you shouldn’t be changing that line anyway, but if you were to just copy and replace the above four lines then you will wind up creating pixel shaders that the HLSL compiler would try to compile as vertex shaders, with all sort of weird errors as a result). Once you’ve added the $ShaderModel$ line to “PixelShader.vstemplate” and have saved it, everything should be done. Since Feature Level 9_1 and 9_3 don’t support any of the other shader types, those are set to default to their appropriate minimums already (Compute and Geometry are set to “4.0” and Domain and Hull are set to “5.0”, which are their respective minimums (though not all 4.0 cards support Compute shaders; they were an optional feature added with DirectX 10.1 and only became required for DirectX 11 hardware). In case you are wondering where these magic values come from, you can find them all in the “fxc.xml” file in the “\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.CPP\v4.0\V110\1033” directory (or whatever your language number is; 1033 is ENU and various other product languages have their own respective numbers (see: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/goglobal/bb964664.aspx ) such that Japanese is 1041 (for example), though for all I know MSBuild tasks might be 1033 for everyone). If, like me, you installed VS 2012 to a drive other than the C:\ drive, you will find the vstemplate files in the drive to which you installed VS 2012 (D:\ in my case) but you will find the fxc.xml file on the C:\ drive. You should not edit fxc.xml. You will almost definitely break things by doing that; it’s just something you can look through to see all the other options that the FXC task takes such that you could, if needed, add further CustomParameter tags if you wanted to default to other supported options. I haven’t tried any others though so I don’t have any advice on how to set them.

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• A Comparison of Store Layouts

  - by David Dorf

  Belus Capital Advisors is an independent stock market research firm that sometimes rolls up its sleeves and walks retail stores.  This month Brian Sozzi walked both Macy's and Sears and snapped pictures along the way.  The results are a good lesson in what to do and what not to do in retail.  The dichotomy between the two brands is stark, and Brian's pictures tell the stories of artistry and neglect.  For example, look at these two pictures: Where do you want to shop for sneakers?  The left picture shows the Finish Line store within Macy's and the right shows empty shelves at Sears.  The pictures really show the importance of assortments, in-stock inventory, and presentation.  Take a look at the two stories, and pay particular attention to the pictures of Sears. 19 Photos that Show the New Magic of Macy’s Sears is Vanishing from our Minds, the Shocking 18 Photos That Show Why

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• Mobile and Social for Retail

  - by David Dorf

  I've got two speaking gigs in the next few weeks, so I thought I'd preview both here. First I'll be at eTail West on February 24th to talk about mobile. I'll be previewing a new study of how shoppers are using mobile phones. Here's a sneak peek at one of the slides: It should be no surprise that as more consumers adopt smartphones, more are finding ways to use them to help with shopping. Sometimes that's to find a store, download a coupon, or do price comparisons. I'll also be discussing the NRF Mobile Blueprint, and will walk through an example of mobile impacting the in-store experience. Retailers need to look upon mobile as the method of bringing the digital assets of e-commerce into the aisles to enhance shopping. On March 9th I'll be at NRF Innovate co-presenting with Jon Kubo of Wet Seal on social strategies. Jon is a retail innovation rock-star and I always learn something new from every conversation with him. Below is a another slide preview: I cheated a little on the top 10 most popular retailer pages by not including Victoria's Secret Pink. VC is already represented, so I didn't include them a second time. The most interesting statistic I found was that the average user spends 55 minutes on Facebook a day. Wow! I also decided to use the old "Like" and "Fan" icons just because I like them better (pun intended). Wet Seal has been collecting interesting statistics on liked products, so I hope Jon will share lots (I'm on a roll). Hope to see you at both events.

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• Verizon Business Delivers New Sales and Support Tools

  - by michael.seback

  Verizon Business Delivers New Sales and Support Tools and Improves System Performance by 35% Verizon Business, a unit of Verizon Communications, is a global leader in communications and IT solutions. With one of the world's most connected internet protocol networks, Verizon Business delivers communications, IT, security, and network solutions to many of the largest businesses and governments. ..."Our work with Accenture to upgrade our Oracle systems has improved system performance significantly. In a recent survey, 84% of users said performance was 'faster' or 'much faster.' Plus, our sales and support staff have new tools to improve productivity and customer service, which ultimately drives customer retention and revenue." - Rob Moore, Director Verizon Business ...Read more.

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• How do I install iTunes?

  - by David

  I have an iPhone and run Ubuntu on all of my personal computers. Since I did not want to keep a separate partition with Windows on it for the sole purpose of running iTunes, I attempted to install It using Wine. I installed Wine 1.4 from the Software Center and installed iTunes 10.6.3. When I tried to run it I got a slew of error messages. I hopped over to google where it was suggested that I install it through PlayOnLinux. I did so with the same result. Further googling revealed that iTunes 10.6.x is confirmed to work with Wine 1.5.1 and up. I installed Wine 1.5.1 following the instructions I found and was unable to get it to open. I did the same with 1.5.9 with the same results. I opened the Package Manager and installed the Wine 1.5.9 packages through it, and it appears to have installed properly. When trying to install iTunes I got he error "This iTunes installer requires Windows Vista 64 bit or later". Realizing that Wine uses XP as a default I ran winecfg and changed it to Windows 7. This changed nothing and I tried changing it through winetricks to no avail. I even changed it to Vista with the same results. Does anyone know what is going wrong here and how to fix it? Thanks

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• Zero bytes on home partition

  - by Michael Z

  I decided to replace the hard drive on my machine running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS . After using the new hard drive for a few days, I noticed that the new hard drive has bad sectors. So I decided to plug my old hard drive back in. First, I plugged both hard drives in and copied some data files from the new hard drive to the old one. After unplugging the new hard drive, I booted the computer with the old hard drive, and here I got a surprise: I can see 0 bytes available on my /home partition! The df utility shows that the /home partition has 0 available bytes. I have tried to move some files. But I still has 0 bytes on /home! However, GParted correctly shows that the available size is near 2Gb. UPDATE 1: To my surprise, System Monitor shows me that approximately 2 Gb are free and 0 bytes are available on the /home partition. It's slightly shocked me! Are "free" and "available" not the same? Any help is really appreciated!

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• n00b needs some PHP syntax guidance [closed]

  - by Michael

  If you look at http://www.cruc.es/?paged=12/ and go to the bottom of the page you'll see the bottom navigation with the next and previous options. I've been able to make the page numbers work by changing page to paged= in the code. I don't know enough about PHP to get the previous/next options to work. Any advice would be appreciated and I've pasted the code below. Thank you: n00b if ( $query->found_posts > $query->query_vars["posts_per_page"] ) { echo '<ul class="paging">'; // Previous link? if ( $page > 1 ) { echo '<li class="previous"><a href="'.$baseURL.'/page/'.($page-1).'/'.$qs.'">previous</a></li>'; } // Loop through pages for ( $i=1; $i <= $query->max_num_pages; $i++ ) { // Current page or linked page? if ( $i == $page ) { echo '<li class="active">'.$i.'</li>'; } else { echo '<li><a href="'.$baseURL.'/?paged='.$i.'/'.$qs.'">'.$i.'</a></li>'; } } // Next link? if ( $page < $query->max_num_pages ) { echo '<li><a href="'.$baseURL.'/page/'.($page+1).'/'.$qs.'">next</a></li>'; } echo '</ul>'; }

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• C#/.NET Little Wonders: Getting Caller Information

  - by James Michael Hare

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/BlackRabbitCoder/archive/2013/07/25/c.net-little-wonders-getting-caller-information.aspx Once again, in this series of posts I look at the parts of the .NET Framework that may seem trivial, but can help improve your code by making it easier to write and maintain. The index of all my past little wonders posts can be found here. There are times when it is desirable to know who called the method or property you are currently executing.  Some applications of this could include logging libraries, or possibly even something more advanced that may server up different objects depending on who called the method. In the past, we mostly relied on the System.Diagnostics namespace and its classes such as StackTrace and StackFrame to see who our caller was, but now in C# 5, we can also get much of this data at compile-time. Determining the caller using the stack One of the ways of doing this is to examine the call stack.  The classes that allow you to examine the call stack have been around for a long time and can give you a very deep view of the calling chain all the way back to the beginning for the thread that has called you. You can get caller information by either instantiating the StackTrace class (which will give you the complete stack trace, much like you see when an exception is generated), or by using StackFrame which gets a single frame of the stack trace.  Both involve examining the call stack, which is a non-trivial task, so care should be done not to do this in a performance-intensive situation. For our simple example let's say we are going to recreate the wheel and construct our own logging framework.  Perhaps we wish to create a simple method Log which will log the string-ified form of an object and some information about the caller.  We could easily do this as follows: 1: static void Log(object message) 2: { 3: // frame 1, true for source info 4: StackFrame frame = new StackFrame(1, true); 5: var method = frame.GetMethod(); 6: var fileName = frame.GetFileName(); 7: var lineNumber = frame.GetFileLineNumber(); 8: 9: // we'll just use a simple Console write for now 10: Console.WriteLine("{0}({1}):{2} - {3}", 11: fileName, lineNumber, method.Name, message); 12: } So, what we are doing here is grabbing the 2nd stack frame (the 1st is our current method) using a 2nd argument of true to specify we want source information (if available) and then taking the information from the frame.  This works fine, and if we tested it out by calling from a file such as this: 1: // File c:\projects\test\CallerInfo\CallerInfo.cs 2:  3: public class CallerInfo 4: { 5: Log("Hello Logger!"); 6: } We'd see this: 1: c:\projects\test\CallerInfo\CallerInfo.cs(5):Main - Hello Logger! This works well, and in fact CallStack and StackFrame are still the best ways to examine deeper into the call stack.  But if you only want to get information on the caller of your method, there is another option… Determining the caller at compile-time In C# 5 (.NET 4.5) they added some attributes that can be supplied to optional parameters on a method to receive caller information.  These attributes can only be applied to methods with optional parameters with explicit defaults.  Then, as the compiler determines who is calling your method with these attributes, it will fill in the values at compile-time. These are the currently supported attributes available in the  System.Runtime.CompilerServices namespace": CallerFilePathAttribute – The path and name of the file that is calling your method. CallerLineNumberAttribute – The line number in the file where your method is being called. CallerMemberName – The member that is calling your method. So let’s take a look at how our Log method would look using these attributes instead: 1: static int Log(object message, 2: [CallerMemberName] string memberName = "", 3: [CallerFilePath] string fileName = "", 4: [CallerLineNumber] int lineNumber = 0) 5: { 6: // we'll just use a simple Console write for now 7: Console.WriteLine("{0}({1}):{2} - {3}", 8: fileName, lineNumber, memberName, message); 9: } Again, calling this from our sample Main would give us the same result: 1: c:\projects\test\CallerInfo\CallerInfo.cs(5):Main - Hello Logger! However, though this seems the same, there are a few key differences. First of all, there are only 3 supported attributes (at this time) that give you the file path, line number, and calling member.  Thus, it does not give you as rich of detail as a StackFrame (which can give you the calling type as well and deeper frames, for example).  Also, these are supported through optional parameters, which means we could call our new Log method like this: 1: // They're defaults, why not fill 'em in 2: Log("My message.", "Some member", "Some file", -13); In addition, since these attributes require optional parameters, they cannot be used in properties, only in methods. These caveats aside, they do let you get similar information inside of methods at a much greater speed!  How much greater?  Well lets crank through 1,000,000 iterations of each.  instead of logging to console, I’ll return the formatted string length of each.  Doing this, we get: 1: Time for 1,000,000 iterations with StackTrace: 5096 ms 2: Time for 1,000,000 iterations with Attributes: 196 ms So you see, using the attributes is much, much faster!  Nearly 25x faster in fact.  Summary There are a few ways to get caller information for a method.  The StackFrame allows you to get a comprehensive set of information spanning the whole call stack, but at a heavier cost.  On the other hand, the attributes allow you to quickly get at caller information baked in at compile-time, but to do so you need to create optional parameters in your methods to support it. Technorati Tags: Little Wonders,CSharp,C#,.NET,StackFrame,CallStack,CallerFilePathAttribute,CallerLineNumberAttribute,CallerMemberName

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• Can I assume interface oriented programming as a good object oriented programming?

  - by david

  I have been programming for decades but I have not been used to object oriented programming. But for recenet years, I had a great opportunity to learn OOP, its principles, and a lot of patterns that are great. Since I've learned OOP, I tried to apply them to a couple of projects and found those projects successful. Unfortunately I didn't follow extreme programming that suggests writing test first, mainly because their time frame were tight. What I did for those projects were Identify all necessary classes and create them with proper properties and methods whenever there is dependency between classes, write interface between them see if there is any patterns for certain relationships between classes to replace By successful, I meant that it was quick development effort, the classes can be reused better, and flexible enough so that another programmer does not have to change something else to fix another part. But I wonder if this is a good practice. Of course, I know I need to put writing unit tests first in my work process. But other than that, is there any problem with this approach - creating lots of interfaces - in long term?

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• How to fix corrupted desktop icons and fonts?

  - by David Harvey

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

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• Five Key Strategies in Master Data Management

  - by david.butler(at)oracle.com

  Here is a very interesting Profit Magazine article on MDM: A recent customer survey reveals the deleterious effects of data fragmentation. by Trevor Naidoo, December 2010   Across industries and geographies, IT organizations have grown in complexity, whether due to mergers and acquisitions, or decentralized systems supporting functional or departmental requirements. With systems architected over time to support unique, one-off process needs, they are becoming costly to maintain, and the Internet has only further added to the complexity. Data fragmentation has become a key inhibitor in delivering flexible, user-friendly systems. The Oracle Insight team conducted a survey assessing customers' master data management (MDM) capabilities over the past two years to get a sense of where they are in terms of their capabilities. The responses, by 27 respondents from six different industries, reveal five key areas in which customers need to improve their data management in order to get better financial results. 1. Less than 15 percent of organizations surveyed understand the sources and quality of their master data, and have a roadmap to address missing data domains. Examples of the types of master data domains referred to are customer, supplier, product, financial and site. Many organizations have multiple sources of master data with varying degrees of data quality in each source -- customer data stored in the customer relationship management system is inconsistent with customer data stored in the order management system. Imagine not knowing how many places you stored your customer information, and whether a customer's address was the most up to date in each source. In fact, more than 55 percent of the respondents in the survey manage their data quality on an ad-hoc basis. It is important for organizations to document their inventory of data sources and then profile these data sources to ensure that there is a consistent definition of key data entities throughout the organization. Some questions to ask are: How do we define a customer? What is a product? How do we define a site? The goal is to strive for one common repository for master data that acts as a cross reference for all other sources and ensures consistent, high-quality master data throughout the organization. 2. Only 18 percent of respondents have an enterprise data management strategy to ensure that data is treated as an asset to the organization. Most respondents handle data at the department or functional level and do not have an enterprise view of their master data. The sales department may track all their interactions with customers as they move through the sales cycle, the service department is tracking their interactions with the same customers independently, and the finance department also has a different perspective on the same customer. The salesperson may not be aware that the customer she is trying to sell to is experiencing issues with existing products purchased, or that the customer is behind on previous invoices. The lack of a data strategy makes it difficult for business users to turn data into information via reports. Without the key building blocks in place, it is difficult to create key linkages between customer, product, site, supplier and financial data. These linkages make it possible to understand patterns. A well-defined data management strategy is aligned to the business strategy and helps create the governance needed to ensure that data stewardship is in place and data integrity is intact. 3. Almost 60 percent of respondents have no strategy to integrate data across operational applications. Many respondents have several disparate sources of data with no strategy to keep them in sync with each other. Even though there is no clear strategy to integrate the data (see #2 above), the data needs to be synced and cross-referenced to keep the business processes running. About 55 percent of respondents said they perform this integration on an ad hoc basis, and in many cases, it is done manually with the help of Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. For example, a salesperson needs a report on global sales for a specific product, but the product has different product numbers in different countries. Typically, an analyst will pull all the data into Excel, manually create a cross reference for that product, and then aggregate the sales. The exact same procedure has to be followed if the same report is needed the following month. A well-defined consolidation strategy will ensure that a central cross-reference is maintained with updates in any one application being propagated to all the other systems, so that data is synchronized and up to date. This can be done in real time or in batch mode using integration technology. 4. Approximately 50 percent of respondents spend manual efforts cleansing and normalizing data. Information stored in various systems usually follows different standards and formats, making it difficult to match the data. A customer's address can be stored in different ways using a variety of abbreviations -- for example, "av" or "ave" for avenue. Similarly, a product's attributes can be stored in a number of different ways; for example, a size attribute can be stored in inches and can also be entered as "'' ". These types of variations make it difficult to match up data from different sources. Today, most customers rely on manual, heroic efforts to match, cleanse, and de-duplicate data -- clearly not a scalable, sustainable model. To solve this challenge, organizations need the ability to standardize data for customers, products, sites, suppliers and financial accounts; however, less than 10 percent of respondents have technology in place to automatically resolve duplicates. It is no wonder, therefore, that we get communications about products we don't own, at addresses we don't reside, and using channels (like direct mail) we don't like. An all-too-common example of a potential challenge follows: Customers end up receiving duplicate communications, which not only impacts customer satisfaction, but also incurs additional mailing costs. Cleansing, normalizing, and standardizing data will help address most of these issues. 5. Only 10 percent of respondents have the ability to share data that was mastered in a master data hub. Close to 60 percent of respondents have efforts in place that profile, standardize and cleanse data manually, and the output of these efforts are stored in spreadsheets in various parts of the organization. This valuable information is not easily shared with the rest of the organization and, more importantly, this enriched information cannot be sent back to the source systems so that the data is fixed at the source. A key benefit of a master data management strategy is not only to clean the data, but to also share the data back to the source systems as well as other systems that need the information. Aside from the source systems, another key beneficiary of this data is the business intelligence system. Having clean master data as input to business intelligence systems provides more accurate and enhanced reporting.  Characteristics of Stellar MDM When deciding on the right master data management technology, organizations should look for solutions that have four main characteristics: enterprise-grade MDM performance complete technology that can be rapidly deployed and addresses multiple business issues end-to-end MDM process management with data quality monitoring and assurance pre-built MDM business relevant applications with data stores and workflows These master data management capabilities will aid in moving closer to a best-practice maturity level, delivering tremendous efficiencies and savings as well as revenue growth opportunities as a result of better understanding your customers.  Trevor Naidoo is a senior director in Industry Strategy and Insight at Oracle. 

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• Configuring keyboard input to eliminate unused diacritics

  - by David Cesarino

  I'd like to change the way diacritics work under Xubuntu. My problem My native language is pt-BR and my notebook has an american keyboard. Thus, I use ' and " followed by keys like u and c to achieve things like ú, ç and ü. It all works well. However, in the case of apostrophes and quotes, that creates a problem when I use ' followed by: letters that won't accept the acute accent ( ´ , ACUTE ACCENT -- 0x00B4) at all, like t; and letters that won't accept the acute in pt-BR, like r. In 1, ' with t does absolutely nothing. In 2, ' with r creates r (LATIN SMALL LETTER R WITH ACUTE -- 0x0155), which is used, afaik, for some eastern european languages like slovak. It isn't used in portuguese, just like ?, s, z, ?, ?, ?, n and all consonants (portuguese do not take diacritics in consonants). Question That said, is there a way to better support the portuguese-brazilian language using an american keyboard? It is very common here --- I actually prefer the american keyboard to our own, known as “ABNT”. Desired solution I'd like to deactivate unused diacritics, so case 2 would behave just like case 1. Additionally, if possible, I'd like case 1 to behave like it does under Windows. As an example, typing ' followed by t should write 't (acute followed by T) instead of doing nothing. About 2, in my humble opinion, doing nothing is counterproductive. I realize the behavior is reasonable according to logic ("there isn't t-acute, so please tell the computer to typeset apostrophe --- ', SPACE --- instead of acute). But from a human, practical point of view, I think it makes more sense (to me, at least). Additional comments I believe this also applies to spanish, french, italian and other western european latin languages. On the console (Ctrl+Alt+F?), case 1 is not a problem. I don't need to press space as apostrophes are automatically added. However, there, I'm unable to access cedilla (ç). Two completely different behaviors. If it's just a matter of customizing text config files (possibly creating a custom layout or whatever), I'd be glad to share my efforts. I just need guide on the "howto" part. Somehow Google only points me to the "enough" people (those who cope with the situation and think that it works "well enough"). And since I have definitely migrated to Linux/Xubuntu after years, I'd like to leave just as I like it (and I'm sure others as well). For example, if there is some kind of scripting or definition to tell the computer to do what I described, so be it.

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• Incomplete upgrade 12.04 to 12.10

  - by David

  Everything was running smoothly. Everything had been downloaded from Internet, packages had been installed and a prompt asked for some obsolete programs/files to be removed or kept. After that the computer crashed and and to manually force a shutdown. I turned it on again and surprise I was on 12.10! Still the upgrade was not finished! How can I properly finish that upgrade? Here's the output I got in the command line after following posted instructions: i astrill - Astrill VPN client software i dayjournal - Simple, minimal, digital journal. i gambas2-gb-form - A gambas native form component i gambas2-gb-gtk - The Gambas gtk component i gambas2-gb-gtk-ext - The Gambas extended gtk GUI component i gambas2-gb-gui - The graphical toolkit selector component i gambas2-gb-qt - The Gambas Qt GUI component i gambas2-gb-settings - Gambas utilities class i A gambas2-runtime - The Gambas runtime i google-chrome-stable - The web browser from Google i google-talkplugin - Google Talk Plugin i indicator-keylock - Indicator for Lock Keys i indicator-ubuntuone - Indicator for Ubuntu One synchronization s i A language-pack-kde-zh-hans - KDE translation updates for language Simpl i language-pack-kde-zh-hans-base - KDE translations for language Simplified C i libapt-inst1.4 - deb package format runtime library idA libattica0.3 - a Qt library that implements the Open Coll idA libbabl-0.0-0 - Dynamic, any to any, pixel format conversi idA libboost-filesystem1.46.1 - filesystem operations (portable paths, ite idA libboost-program-options1.46.1 - program options library for C++ idA libboost-python1.46.1 - Boost.Python Library idA libboost-regex1.46.1 - regular expression library for C++ i libboost-serialization1.46.1 - serialization library for C++ idA libboost-signals1.46.1 - managed signals and slots library for C++ idA libboost-system1.46.1 - Operating system (e.g. diagnostics support idA libboost-thread1.46.1 - portable C++ multi-threading i libcamel-1.2-29 - Evolution MIME message handling library i libcmis-0.2-0 - CMIS protocol client library i libcupsdriver1 - Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - Driver l i libdconf0 - simple configuration storage system - runt i libdvdcss2 - Simple foundation for reading DVDs - runti i libebackend-1.2-1 - Utility library for evolution data servers i libecal-1.2-10 - Client library for evolution calendars i libedata-cal-1.2-13 - Backend library for evolution calendars i libedataserver-1.2-15 - Utility library for evolution data servers i libexiv2-11 - EXIF/IPTC metadata manipulation library i libgdu-gtk0 - GTK+ standard dialog library for libgdu i libgdu0 - GObject based Disk Utility Library idA libgegl-0.0-0 - Generic Graphics Library idA libglew1.5 - The OpenGL Extension Wrangler - runtime en i libglew1.6 - OpenGL Extension Wrangler - runtime enviro i libglewmx1.6 - OpenGL Extension Wrangler - runtime enviro i libgnome-bluetooth8 - GNOME Bluetooth tools - support library i libgnomekbd7 - GNOME library to manage keyboard configura idA libgsoap1 - Runtime libraries for gSOAP i libgweather-3-0 - GWeather shared library i libimobiledevice2 - Library for communicating with the iPhone i libkdcraw20 - RAW picture decoding library i libkexiv2-10 - Qt like interface for the libexiv2 library i libkipi8 - library for apps that want to use kipi-plu i libkpathsea5 - TeX Live: path search library for TeX (run i libmagickcore4 - low-level image manipulation library i libmagickwand4 - image manipulation library i libmarblewidget13 - Marble globe widget library idA libmusicbrainz4-3 - Library to access the MusicBrainz.org data i libnepomukdatamanagement4 - Basic Nepomuk data manipulation interface i libnux-2.0-0 - Visual rendering toolkit for real-time app i libnux-2.0-common - Visual rendering toolkit for real-time app i libpoppler19 - PDF rendering library i libqt3-mt - Qt GUI Library (Threaded runtime version), i librhythmbox-core5 - support library for the rhythmbox music pl i libusbmuxd1 - USB multiplexor daemon for iPhone and iPod i libutouch-evemu1 - KernelInput Event Device Emulation Library i libutouch-frame1 - Touch Frame Library i libutouch-geis1 - Gesture engine interface support i libutouch-grail1 - Gesture Recognition And Instantiation Libr idA libx264-120 - x264 video coding library i libyajl1 - Yet Another JSON Library i linux-headers-3.2.0-29 - Header files related to Linux kernel versi i linux-headers-3.2.0-29-generic - Linux kernel headers for version 3.2.0 on i linux-image-3.2.0-29-generic - Linux kernel image for version 3.2.0 on 64 i mplayerthumbs - video thumbnail generator using mplayer i myunity - Unity configurator i A openoffice.org-calc - office productivity suite -- spreadsheet i A openoffice.org-writer - office productivity suite -- word processo i python-brlapi - Python bindings for BrlAPI i python-louis - Python bindings for liblouis i rts-bpp-dkms - rts-bpp driver in DKMS format. i system76-driver - Universal driver for System76 computers. i systemconfigurator - Unified Configuration API for Linux Instal i systemimager-client - Utilities for creating an image and upgrad i systemimager-common - Utilities and libraries common to both the i systemimager-initrd-template-am - SystemImager initrd template for amd64 cli i touchpad-indicator - An indicator for the touchpad i ubuntu-tweak - Ubuntu Tweak i A unity-lens-utilities - Unity Utilities lens i A unity-scope-calculator - Calculator engine i unity-scope-cities - Cities engine i unity-scope-rottentomatoes - Unity Scope Rottentomatoes

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• Isometric algorithm producing tiles in wrong draw order

  - by David

  I've been toying with isometric and I just cant get the tiles to be in the right order. I'm probably missing something obvious and I just can't see it. Even at the risk of looking stupid, here's my code: for (int i = 0; i < Tile.MapSize; i++) { for (int j = 0; j < Tile.MapSize; j++) { spriteBatch.Draw( Tile.TileSetTexture, new Rectangle( (-j * Tile.TileWidth / 2) + (i * Tile.TileWidth / 2), (i * (Tile.TileHeight - 9) / 2) - (-j * (Tile.TileHeight - 9) / 2), Tile.TileWidth, Tile.TileHeight), Tile.GetSourceRectangle(tileID), Color.White, 0.0f, new Vector2(-350, -60), SpriteEffects.None, 1.0f); } } And here's what I end up with: messed up map Yep, bit of an issue. If anyone could help, I'd appreciate it.

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• Validating User Stories: How much change is too much?

  - by David Kaczynski

  While the core of requirements development and acceptance criteria would ideally take place during the planning meeting in order to create a better estimate, Scrum encourages continuous interaction with the product owner throughout the sprint to validate and refine user stories. What kind of criteria is used to judge if there is too much change being imposed on a user story mid-sprint? When is it appropriate to change the requirements of the user story? When is it appropriate to cancel the user story / sprint in order to re-evaluate and re-estimate a user story in question?

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• Payments for Android through Checkout/AdSense

  - by David Cesarino

  To those that don't know, Android developers in some countries recently transitioned from AdSense to Checkout for Play Store payments. This is told to existing seller accounts: Q: What happens if I have funds in my AdSense account but am not eligible for a payout yet? A: AdSense accounts have minimum thresholds for payouts. If you’re not eligible for a payout through AdSense for [month of migration], the funds will be automatically transferred back to your Google Checkout account. Once you enter bank account information through your Checkout account and have accrued at least $100 USD, your first wire transfer will be issued during the next monthly payout cycle. However, AdSense is still holding my funds, and since Checkout already paid me directly, following the new directives, I'm afraid the funds will be held in AdSense forever (I used AdSense only for Play Store payments, as required). Obviously, this is no replacement for Google support (a crusade to reach them, but nevermind...), I'm just asking if someone experienced this problem during the transition and how it was fixed.

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• AccelerometerInput XNA GameComponent

  - by Michael B. McLaughlin

  Bad accelerometer controls kill otherwise good games. I decided to try to do something about it. So I create an XNA GameComponent called AccelerometerInput. It’s still a beta project but you are welcome to try it, use it, modify it, etc. I’m releasing under the terms of the Microsoft Public License. Important info: First, it only supports tilt-style controls currently. I have not implemented motion-style controls yet (and make no promises as to when I might find time to do so). Second, I commented it heavily so that you can (hopefully) understand what it is doing. Please read the comments and examine the sample game for a usage overview. There are configurable parameters which I encourage you to make use of (both by modifying the default values where your testing shows it to be appropriate and also by implementing a calibration mechanism in your game that lets the user adjust those configurable values based on his or her own circumstances). Third, even with this code, accelerometer controls are still a fairly advanced topic area; you will likely find nothing but disappointment if you simply plunk this into some project without testing it on a device (or preferably on several devices). Fourth, if you do try this code and find that something doesn’t work as expected on your phone, please let me know as I want to improve it and can only do so with your help. Let me know what phone model it is, what you tried doing, what you expected, and what result you had instead. I may or may not be able to incorporate it into the code, but I can let others know at the very least so that they can make appropriate modifications to their games (I’m hopeful that all phones are reasonably similar in their workings and require, at most, a slight calibration change, but I simply don’t know). Fifth, although I’ll do my best to answer any questions you may have about it, I’m very busy with a number of things currently so it might take a little while. Please look through the code and examine the comments and sample game first before asking any questions. It’s likely that the answer is in there. If not, or if you just aren’t really sure, ask away. Sixth, there are differences between a portrait-mode game and a landscape mode game (specifically in the appropriate default tilt adjustment for toward the user/away from the user calculations). This is documented and the default is set for landscape. If you use this for a portrait game, make the appropriate change (look for the TODO: comment in AccelerometerInput.cs). Seventh, no provision whatsoever is made for disabling screen locking. It is up to you to implement that and to take appropriate measures to detect when the user has been idle for too long and timeout the game. That code is very game-specific. If you have questions about such matters, consult the relevant MSDN documentation and, if you still have questions, visit the App Hub forums and ask there. I answer questions there a lot and so I may even stumble across your question and answer it. But that’s a much better forum than the comments section here for questions of that sort so I would appreciate it if you asked idle detection-related questions there (or on some other suitable site that you may be more familiar and comfortable with). Eighth, this is an XNA GameComponent intended for XNA-based games on WP7. A sufficiently knowledgeable Silverlight developer should have no problem adapting it for use in a Silverlight game or app. I may create a Silverlight version at some point myself. Right now I do not have the time, unfortunately. Ok. Without further ado: http://www.bobtacoindustries.com/developers/utils/AccelerometerInput.zip Have a great St. Patrick’s Day!

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• How-To limit user-names in LightDM login-screen when AccountsService is used

  - by David A. Cobb

  I have several "user" names in passwd that don't represent real people, and that should not appear on the LightDM login-screen. The lightdm-gtk-greeter configuration file clearly says that if AccountsService is installed, the program uses that and ignores its owh configureation files. HOWEVER, there is less than nothing for documentation about how to configure AccountsService! Please, can someone tell me how to configure the system so that only an explicitly specified group of users are shown on the greeter? I could uninstall AccountsService. I did that before, but it comes back (dependencies, I suppose). TIA

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• Less Can Be More In E-Commerce

  - by Michael Hylton

  Today’s consumers are inundated with product choices and vendors. Visit your favorite electronics retailer and see the vast assortment of flat panel televisions. Or the variety of detergents at the supermarket. All of this can be daunting for the average consumer who is looking for the products and services that interest them.  In a study titled “Choice is Demotivating: Can One Desire Too Much of a Good Thing”, the author, Sheena Iyengar found that participants actually reported greater subsequent satisfaction with their selections and wrote better essays when their original set of options had been limited. The same can be said for e-commerce and your website. Being able to quickly convert shoppers into buyers with effective merchandising is what makes leading businesses successful. You want to engage each individual visitor with the most-relevant content to drive higher conversions and order values while decreasing abandonment, but predicting what will resonate with each customer is difficult. In a world of choices, online merchandizing tools can help personalize, streamline, and refine what your customers view when they browse your online catalog. The key to being effective is to align your products and content as closely as possible with the customer’s needs. The goal on the home page is to promote your brand and push visitors farther into the site. The home page is often the starting point for repeat customers as well as for new visitors hoping to address their current product needs. As the customer selects different filters and narrows the choices, valuable information is being provided to the retailer about the customer’s current need—regardless of previous search behavior or what other customers with a similar demographic profile have purchased. Together with search pages, category browse pages are among the primary options available to customers as a means of finding products on your site. Once a customer reaches the product detail page, it is clear what that person desires, regardless of the segment the customer falls into. However, don’t disregard campaign-based promotions completely. A campaign targeted to all customers but featuring rule-driven promotions tied to the product can be effective. Click here to learn more about merchandizing techniques so what your customer sees if half full and not half empty.

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• Less Can Be More In E-Commerce

  - by Michael Hylton

  Today’s consumers are inundated with product choices and vendors. Visit your favorite electronics retailer and see the vast assortment of flat panel televisions. Or the variety of detergents at the supermarket. All of this can be daunting for the average consumer who is looking for the products and services that interest them.  In a study titled “Choice is Demotivating: Can One Desire Too Much of a Good Thing”, the author, Sheena Iyengar found that participants actually reported greater subsequent satisfaction with their selections and wrote better essays when their original set of options had been limited. The same can be said for e-commerce and your website. Being able to quickly convert shoppers into buyers with effective merchandising is what makes leading businesses successful. You want to engage each individual visitor with the most-relevant content to drive higher conversions and order values while decreasing abandonment, but predicting what will resonate with each customer is difficult. In a world of choices, online merchandizing tools can help personalize, streamline, and refine what your customers view when they browse your online catalog. The key to being effective is to align your products and content as closely as possible with the customer’s needs. The goal on the home page is to promote your brand and push visitors farther into the site. The home page is often the starting point for repeat customers as well as for new visitors hoping to address their current product needs. As the customer selects different filters and narrows the choices, valuable information is being provided to the retailer about the customer’s current need—regardless of previous search behavior or what other customers with a similar demographic profile have purchased. Together with search pages, category browse pages are among the primary options available to customers as a means of finding products on your site. Once a customer reaches the product detail page, it is clear what that person desires, regardless of the segment the customer falls into. However, don’t disregard campaign-based promotions completely. A campaign targeted to all customers but featuring rule-driven promotions tied to the product can be effective. Click here to learn more about merchandizing techniques so what your customer sees if half full and not half empty.

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