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• How to Add a Taskbar to the Desktop in Ubuntu 14.04

  - by Lori Kaufman

  If you’ve switched to Ubuntu from Windows, it may take some time to get used to the new and different interface. However, you can easily incorporate a familiar Windows feature, the Taskbar, into Ubuntu to make the transition easier. A tool called Tint2 provides a bar at the bottom of the Ubuntu Desktop that resembles the Windows Taskbar. We will show you how to install it and make it start every time you log into Ubuntu. NOTE: When we say to type something in this article and there are quotes around the text, DO NOT type the quotes, unless we specify otherwise. Press Ctrl + Alt + T to open a Terminal window. To install Tint2, type the following line at the prompt and press Enter. sudo apt-get install tint2 Type your password at the prompt and press Enter. The progress of the installation displays and then a message displays saying how much disk space will be used. When asked if you want to continue, type a “y” and press Enter. When the installation has finished, close the Terminal window by typing “exit” at the prompt and pressing Enter. Click the Search button at the top of the Unity bar. Start typing “startup applications” in the Search box. Items that match what you type start displaying below the Search box. When the Startup Applications tool displays, click the icon to open it. On the Startup Applications Preferences window, click Add. On the Add Startup Program dialog box, enter a name for the startup application. This name displays in the list on the Startup Applications Preferences window. Type “tint2” in the Command edit box, enter a description in the Comment edit box, if desired, and click Add. Tint2 is added as a startup program and will start every time you log into Ubuntu. Click Close to close the Startup Applications Preferences window. Log out and log back in to make the Taskbar available on the desktop. You do not need to reboot the computer for this change to take effect. Now, when you minimize a program, an icon for it displays on the Taskbar at the bottom of the screen, just like the Taskbar in Windows. If you decide that you don’t want the Taskbar to display every time you log into Ubuntu, you can uncheck the Tint2 startup program on the Startup Applications Preferences window. You don’t need to delete it from the list.

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• Is code like this a "train wreck" (in violation of Law of Demeter)?

  - by Michael Kjörling

  Browsing through some code I've written, I came across the following construct which got me thinking. At a first glance, it seems clean enough. Yes, in the actual code the getLocation() method has a slightly more specific name which better describes exactly which location it gets. service.setLocation(this.configuration.getLocation().toString()); In this case, service is an instance variable of a known type, declared within the method. this.configuration comes from being passed in to the class constructor, and is an instance of a class implementing a specific interface (which mandates a public getLocation() method). Hence, the return type of the expression this.configuration.getLocation() is known; specifically in this case, it is a java.net.URL, whereas service.setLocation() wants a String. Since the two types String and URL are not directly compatible, some sort of conversion is required to fit the square peg in the round hole. However, according to the Law of Demeter as cited in Clean Code, a method f in class C should only call methods on C, objects created by or passed as arguments to f, and objects held in instance variables of C. Anything beyond that (the final toString() in my particular case above, unless you consider a temporary object created as a result of the method invocation itself, in which case the whole Law seems to be moot) is disallowed. Is there a valid reasoning why a call like the above, given the constraints listed, should be discouraged or even disallowed? Or am I just being overly nitpicky? If I were to implement a method URLToString() which simply calls toString() on a URL object (such as that returned by getLocation()) passed to it as a parameter, and returns the result, I could wrap the getLocation() call in it to achieve exactly the same result; effectively, I would just move the conversion one step outward. Would that somehow make it acceptable? (It seems to me, intuitively, that it should not make any difference either way, since all that does is move things around a little. However, going by the letter of the Law of Demeter as cited, it would be acceptable, since I would then be operating directly on a parameter to a function.) Would it make any difference if this was about something slightly more exotic than calling toString() on a standard type? When answering, do keep in mind that altering the behavior or API of the type that the service variable is of is not practical. Also, for the sake of argument, let's say that altering the return type of getLocation() is also impractical.

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• Running C++ AMP kernels on the CPU

  - by Daniel Moth

  One of the FAQs we receive is whether C++ AMP can be used to target the CPU. For targeting multi-core we have a technology we released with VS2010 called PPL, which has had enhancements for VS 11 – that is what you should be using! FYI, it also has a Linux implementation via Intel's TBB which conforms to the same interface. When you choose to use C++ AMP, you choose to take advantage of massively parallel hardware, through accelerators like the GPU. Having said that, you can always use the accelerator class to check if you are running on a system where the is no hardware with a DirectX 11 driver, and decide what alternative code path you wish to follow.  In fact, if you do nothing in code, if the runtime does not find DX11 hardware to run your code on, it will choose the WARP accelerator which will run your code on the CPU, taking advantage of multi-core and SSE2 (depending on the CPU capabilities WARP also uses SSE3 and SSE 4.1 – it does not currently use AVX and on such systems you hopefully have a DX 11 GPU anyway). A few things to know about WARP It is our fallback CPU solution, not intended as a primary target of C++ AMP. WARP stands for Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform and you can read old info on this MSDN page on WARP. What is new in Windows 8 Developer Preview is that WARP now supports DirectCompute, which is what C++ AMP builds on. It is not currently clear if we will have a CPU fallback solution for non-Windows 8 platforms when we ship. When you create a WARP accelerator, its is_emulated property returns true. WARP does not currently support double precision.   BTW, when we refer to WARP, we refer to this accelerator described above. If we use lower case "warp", that refers to a bunch of threads that run concurrently in lock step and share the same instruction. In the VS 11 Developer Preview, the size of warp in our Ref emulator is 4 – Ref is another emulator that runs on the CPU, but it is extremely slow not intended for production, just for debugging. Comments about this post by Daniel Moth welcome at the original blog.

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• Need help identifing what resources (eg. In MIT OpenCourseWare) can help me prepare for a test [closed]

  - by jiewmeng

  I am entering uni soon. I can sit for a placement test to see if I elegible for exemptions. The details are http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/undergraduates/TestScope11_12.html Or CS2100 Computer Organisation (please click title) The objective of this module is to familiarise students with the fundamentals of computing devices. Through this module students will understand the basics of data representation, and how the various parts of a computer work, separately and with each other. This allows students to understand the issues in computing devices, and how these issues affect the implementation of solutions. Topics covered include data representation systems, combinational and sequential circuit design techniques, assembly language, processor execution cycles, pipelining, memory hierarchy and input/output systems. Recommended Textbooks Digital Design: Principles and Practices [DDPP] by John F. Wakerly, Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0-13-324500-4. Computer Organizations and Design (The hardware/software interface) by David A. Patterson and John L. Hennessy. CS2105 Introduction to Computer Networks (please click title) This course aims to provide a broad introduction to computer networks and some appreciations of network application programming. It covers a range of topics including basic data communication and computer network concepts, protocols, networked computing concepts and principles, network applications development and network security. The emphasis of teaching is on the working principles and application of computer networks. As an integral part of the course, tutorials and practical assignments enforcing learning will also be given. These assignments provide an early exposure in network application programming and they should be able to complete by using personal computers and school's network facilities. Topics included: An overview of computer networks and the Internet Basic data communications Application layer Transport layer Network layer and routing Link layer and local area networks Recommended Textbook James F. Kurose & Keith W. Ross, Computer networking: A top-down approach featuring internet, Addison Wesley, 2001 I am wondering what resources eg. MIT OpenCourseWare or other universities resources are available to help he perpare for these particular modubles. I am thinking does the Networking one look like CCNA? The computer oragization. Its like electronics, assembly etc? I learnt some electronics in Poly but looking at the sample papers, uni looks very different... I have about 1 month to prepare if I want any chance of exempting from these modules :) any help?

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• Should accessible members of an internal class be internal too?

  - by Jeff Mercado

  I'm designing a set of APIs for some applications I'm working on. I want to keep the code style consistent in all the classes I write but I've found that there are a few inconsistencies that I'm introducing and I don't know what the best way to resolve them is. My example here is specific to C# but this would apply to any language with similar mechanisms. There are a few classes that I need for implementation purposes that I don't necessarily want to expose in the API so I make them internal whereever needed. Generally what I would do is design the class as I normally would (e.g., make members public/protected/private where necessary) and change the visibility level of the class itself to internal. So I might have a few classes that look like this: internal interface IMyItem { ItemSet AddTo(ItemSet set); } internal class _SmallItem : IMyItem { private readonly /* parameters */; public _SmallItem(/* small item parameters */) { /* ... */ } public ItemSet AddTo(ItemSet set) { /* ... */ } } internal abstract class _CompositeItem: IMyItem { private readonly /* parameters */; public _CompositeItem(/* composite item parameters */) { /* ... */ } public abstract object UsefulInformation { get; } protected void HelperMethod(/* parameters */) { /* ... */ } } internal class _BigItem : _CompositeItem { private readonly /* parameters */; public _BigItem(/* big item parameters */) { /* ... */ } public override object UsefulInformation { get { /* ... */ } } public ItemSet AddTo(ItemSet set) { /* ... */ } } In another generated class (part of a parser/scanner), there is a structure that contains fields for all possible values it can represent. The class generated is internal too but I have control over the visibility of the members and decided to make them internal as well. internal partial struct ValueType { internal string String; internal ItemSet ItemSet; internal IMyItem MyItem; } internal class TokenValue { internal static int EQ(ItemSetScanner scanner) { /* ... */ } internal static int NAME(ItemSetScanner scanner, string value) { /* ... */ } internal static int VALUE(ItemSetScanner scanner, string value) { /* ... */ } //... } To me, this feels odd because the first set of classes, I didn't necessarily have to make some members public, they very well could have been made internal. internal members of an internal type can only be accessed internally anyway so why make them public? I just don't like the idea that the way I write my classes has to change drastically (i.e., change all uses of public to internal) just because the class is internal. Any thoughts on what I should do here? It makes sense to me that I might want to make some members of a class declared public, internal. But it's less clear to me when the class is declared internal.

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• How granular should a command be in a CQ[R]S model?

  - by Aaronaught

  I'm considering a project to migrate part of our WCF-based SOA over to a service bus model (probably nServiceBus) and using some basic pub-sub to achieve Command-Query Separation. I'm not new to SOA, or even to service bus models, but I confess that until recently my concept of "separation" was limited to run-of-the-mill database mirroring and replication. Still, I'm attracted to the idea because it seems to provide all the benefits of an eventually-consistent system while sidestepping many of the obvious drawbacks (most notably the lack of proper transactional support). I've read a lot on the subject from Udi Dahan who is basically the guru on ESB architectures (at least in the Microsoft world), but one thing he says really puzzles me: As we get larger entities with more fields on them, we also get more actors working with those same entities, and the higher the likelihood that something will touch some attribute of them at any given time, increasing the number of concurrency conflicts. [...] A core element of CQRS is rethinking the design of the user interface to enable us to capture our users’ intent such that making a customer preferred is a different unit of work for the user than indicating that the customer has moved or that they’ve gotten married. Using an Excel-like UI for data changes doesn’t capture intent, as we saw above. -- Udi Dahan, Clarified CQRS From the perspective described in the quotation, it's hard to argue with that logic. But it seems to go against the grain with respect to SOAs. An SOA (and really services in general) are supposed to deal with coarse-grained messages so as to minimize network chatter - among many other benefits. I realize that network chatter is less of an issue when you've got highly-distributed systems with good message queuing and none of the baggage of RPC, but it doesn't seem wise to dismiss the issue entirely. Udi almost seems to be saying that every attribute change (i.e. field update) ought to be its own command, which is hard to imagine in the context of one user potentially updating hundreds or thousands of combined entities and attributes as it often is with a traditional web service. One batch update in SQL Server may take a fraction of a second given a good highly-parameterized query, table-valued parameter or bulk insert to a staging table; processing all of these updates one at a time is slow, slow, slow, and OLTP database hardware is the most expensive of all to scale up/out. Is there some way to reconcile these competing concerns? Am I thinking about it the wrong way? Does this problem have a well-known solution in the CQS/ESB world? If not, then how does one decide what the "right level" of granularity in a Command should be? Is there some "standard" one can use as a starting point - sort of like 3NF in databases - and only deviate when careful profiling suggests a potentially significant performance benefit? Or is this possibly one of those things that, despite several strong opinions being expressed by various experts, is really just a matter of opinion?

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• Traditional POS is Dead

  - by David Dorf

  Traditional POS is dead -- I've heard that one before. Here's an excerpt from Joe Skorupa's blog over at RIS where he relayed ten trends that were presented at NRF. 7. Mobile POS signals death of traditional POS. Shoppers don't love self-checkout, but they prefer it to long queues or dealing with associates. Fixed POS is expensive and bulky. Mobile POS frees floor space for other purposes and converts associates from being cashiers to being sales assistants that provide new levels of customer service and incremental basket sales. In addition to unplugging the POS, new alternatives are starting to take hold - thin client, POS as a service, and replacing POS software with e-commerce platforms. I'll grant that in some situations for some retailers there might be an opportunity to to ditch the traditional POS, but for the majority of retailers that's just not practical. Take it from a guy that had to wake up at 3am after every Thanksgiving to monitor POS systems across the US on Black Friday. If a retailer's website goes down on Black Friday, they will take a significant hit. If a retailer's chain-wide POS system goes down on Black Friday, that retailer will cease to exist. Mobile POS works great for Apple because the majority of purchases are one or two big-ticket items that don't involve cash. There's still a traditional POS in every store to fall back on (its just hidden). Try this at home: Choose your favorite e-commerce site and add an item to the cart while timing how long it takes. Now multiply that by 15 to represent the 15 items you might buy at store like Target. The user interface isn't optimized for bulk purchases, and that's how it should be. The webstore and POS are designed for different purposes. Self-checkout is a great addition to POS and so is mobile checkout. But they add capabilities to POS, not replace it. Centralized architectures, even those based in the cloud, are quite viable as long as there's resiliency in the registers. You cannot assume perfect access to the network, so a POS must always be able to sell regardless of connectivity. Clearly the different selling channels should be sharing common functionality. Things like calculating tax, accepting coupons, and processing electronic payments can be shared, usually through a service-oriented architecture. This lowers costs and providers greater consistency, both of which help retailers. On paper these technologies look really good and we should continue to push boundaries, but I'm not ready to call the patient dead just yet.

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• Creating Asynchronous Methods in EJB 3.1

  - by cindo

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} OBE of the Month: Creating Asynchronous Methods in EJB 3.1 This OBE covers creating an EJB 3.1 application that demonstrates the use of the @Asynchronous annotation in an Enterprise Java Bean (EJB) class or specific method. In this tutorial, you will create a Java EE 6 Web Application and add the following components to it - a Stateless Session Bean with two asynchronous methods. You define a Servlet to call the asynchronous methods and to keep track of the invocation and completion times to demonstrate the asynchronous nature of the method calls. The index.jsp will contain a form with a submit button, Run allowing you to execute the application. The form will submit to the Servlet which invokes the asynchronous methods defined in the session bean and the response is re-directed to response.jsp. Information about the asynchronous handling procedure is displayed to users. From this information, users will notice that the invoker thread and the called asynchronous thread are working concurrently. Check out this new OBE on the Oracle Learning Library: Creating Asynchronous Methods in EJB 3.1. This OBE is part of the new EJB 3.1 New Features Series. Related OBE’s that might interest you: Creating a No-Interface View Session Bean and Packaging in a WAR File Creating and Accessing a Session Bean in a  Web Application

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• Nokia Windows Phone 8 App Collection

  - by Tim Murphy

  I recently upgraded to a Nokia Lumia 920.  Along with it came the availability of a number of Nokia developed apps or apps that Nokia has made available from other developers.  Below is a summary of some of the ones that I have used to this point.  There are quite a few of them so I won’t be covering everything that is available. Nokia Maps I am quite pleased with the accuracy of Nokia Maps and not having to tap the screen for each turn any more.  The information on the screen is quite good as well.  The couple of improvements I would like to see are for the voice directions to include which street or exit you need to use and improve the search accuracy.  Bing maps had much better search results in my opinion. Nokia Drive This one really had me confused when I first setup the phone.  I was driving down the road and suddenly I am getting notification tones, but there were no visual notifications on the phone.  It seems that in their infinite wisdom Nokia thinks I don’t know when I am going over the speed limit and need to be told. ESPN I really liked my ESPN app on Windows Phone 7.5, but I am not getting the type of experience I was looking for out of this app.  While it allows me to pick my favorite teams, but there isn’t a pivot page or panorama page that shows a summary of my favorite teams.  I have also found that the live tile don’t update very often.  Over all I am rather disappointed compared app produced by ESPN. Smart Shoot I really need to get the kids to let me use this on.  I like the concept, but I need to spend more time with it.  The idea how running the camera through a continuous shooting mode and then picking the best is something that I have done with my DSLR and am glad to see it available here. Cinemagraph Here is a fun filter.  It doesn’t have the most accurate editing features, but it is fun to stop certain parts of a scene and let other parts move.  As a test I stopped the traffic on the highway and let the traffic on the frontage road flow.  It makes for a fun effect.  If nothing else it could be great for sending prank animations to your friends. YouSendIt I have only briefly touched this application.  What I don’t understand is why it is needed.  Most of the functionality seems to be similar to SkyDrive and it gives you less storage.  They only feature that seems to differentiate the app is the signature capability. Creative Studio This app has some nice quick edits, but it is not very comprehensive.  I am also not to thrilled with the user experience.  It puts you though an initial color cast series that I’m not sure why it is there.  Discovery of the remaining adjustments isn’t that great.  In the end I found myself wanting Thumbia back. Panorama This is one of the apps that I like.  I found it easy to use as it guides you with a target circle that you center for it to take the next pictures.  It also stitches the images with amazing speed.  The one thing I wish it had was the capability to turn the phone into portrait orientation and do a taller panorama.  Perhaps we will see this in the future. Nokia Music After getting over the missing album art I found that there were a number of missing features with this app as well.  I have a Zune HD and I am used to being able to go through my collection and adding songs, albums or artists to my now playing.  There also doesn’t seem to be a way to manage playlists that I have seen yet.  Other than that the UI is familiar and it give Nokia City Lens Augmented reality is a cool concept, but I still haven’t seen it implemented in a compelling fashion beyond a demo at TED a couple of years ago.  The app still leaves me wanting as well.  It does give an interesting toy.  It gives you the ability to look for general categories and see general direction and clusters of locations.  I think as this concept is better thought out it will become more compelling. Nokia Trailers I don’t know how often I will use this app, but I do like being able to see what movies are being promoted.  I can’t wait for The Hobbit to come out and the trailer was just what the doctor ordered.  I can see coming back to this app from time to time. PhotoBeamer PhotoBeamer is a strange beast that needs a better instruction manual.  It seems a lot like magic but very confusing.  I need some more testing, but I don’t think this is something that most people are going to understand quickly and may give up before getting it to work.  I may put an update here after playing with it further. Ringtone Maker The app was just published and it didn’t work very well for me. It couldn’t find 95% of the songs that Nokia Music was playing for me and crashed several times.  It also had songs named wrong that when I checked them in Nokia Music they were fine.  This app looks like it has a long way to go. Summary In all I think that Nokia is offering a well rounded set of initial applications that can get any new owner started.  There is definitely room for improvement in all of these apps.  The main need is usability upgrades.  I would guess that with feedback from users they will come up to acceptable levels.  Try them out and see if you agree. del.icio.us Tags: Windows Phone,Nokia,Lumia,Nokia Apps,ESPN,PhotoBeamer,City Lens,YouSendIt,Drive,Maps

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• Cocos2d: Adding a CCSequence to a CCArray

  - by Axort

  I have a problem with an action performed by a sprite. I have one CCSequence in a CCArray and I have an scheduled method (is called every 5 seconds) that make the sprite run the action. The action is performed correctly only the first time (the first 5 seconds), after that, the action do whatever it wants lol. Here is the code: In .h - @interface PowerUpLayer : CCLayer { PowerUp *powerUp; CCArray *trajectories; } @property (nonatomic, retain) CCArray *trajectories; In .mm - @implementation PowerUpLayer @synthesize trajectories; -(id)init { if((self = [super init])) { [self createTrajectories]; self.isTouchEnabled = YES; [self schedule:@selector(spawn:) interval:5]; } return self; } -(void)createTrajectories { self.trajectories = [CCArray arrayWithCapacity:1]; //Wave trajectory ccBezierConfig firstWave, secondWave; firstWave.controlPoint_1 = CGPointMake([[CCDirector sharedDirector] winSize].width + 30, [[CCDirector sharedDirector] winSize].height / 2);//powerUp.sprite.position.x, powerUp.sprite.position.y); firstWave.controlPoint_2 = CGPointMake([[CCDirector sharedDirector] winSize].width - ([[CCDirector sharedDirector] winSize].width / 4), 0); firstWave.endPosition = CGPointMake([[CCDirector sharedDirector] winSize].width / 2, [[CCDirector sharedDirector] winSize].height / 2); secondWave.controlPoint_1 = CGPointMake([[CCDirector sharedDirector] winSize].width / 2, [[CCDirector sharedDirector] winSize].height / 2); secondWave.controlPoint_2 = CGPointMake([[CCDirector sharedDirector] winSize].width / 4, [[CCDirector sharedDirector] winSize].height); secondWave.endPosition = CGPointMake(-30, [[CCDirector sharedDirector] winSize].height / 2); id bezierWave1 = [CCBezierTo actionWithDuration:1 bezier:firstWave]; id bezierWave2 = [CCBezierTo actionWithDuration:1 bezier:secondWave]; id waveTrajectory = [CCSequence actions:bezierWave1, bezierWave2, [CCCallFuncN actionWithTarget:self selector:@selector(setInvisible:)], nil]; [self.trajectories addObject:waveTrajectory]; //[powerUp.sprite runAction:bezierForward]; // [CCMoveBy actionWithDuration:3 position:CGPointMake(-[[CCDirector sharedDirector] winSize].width - powerUp.sprite.contentSize.width, 0)] //[powerUp.sprite runAction:[CCSequence actions:bezierWave1, bezierWave2, [CCCallFuncN actionWithTarget:self selector:@selector(setInvisible:)], nil]]; } -(void)setInvisible:(id)sender { if(powerUp != nil) { [self removeChild:sender cleanup:YES]; powerUp = nil; } } This is the scheduled method: -(void)spawn:(ccTime)dt { if(powerUp == nil) { powerUp = [[PowerUp alloc] initWithType:0]; powerUp.sprite.position = CGPointMake([[CCDirector sharedDirector] winSize].width + powerUp.sprite.contentSize.width, [[CCDirector sharedDirector] winSize].height / 2); [self addChild:powerUp.sprite z:-1]; [powerUp.sprite runAction:((CCSequence *)[self.trajectories objectAtIndex:0])]; } } I don't know what is happening; I never modify the content of the CCSequence after the first time. Thanks!

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• How to apply effects that occur (or change) over time to characters in a game?

  - by Joshua Harris

  So assume that I have a system that applies Effects to Characters like so: public class Character { private Collection<Effect> _effects; public void AddEffect (Effect e) { e.ApplyTo(this); _effects.Add(e); } public void RemoveEffect (Effect e) { e.RemoveFrom(this); _effects.Remove(e); } } public interface Effect { public void ApplyTo (Character character); public void RemoveFrom (Character character); } Example Effect: Armor Buff for 5 seconds. void someFunction() { // Do Stuff ... Timer armorTimer = new Timer(5 seconds); ArmorBuff armorbuff = new ArmorBuff(); character.AddEffect(armorBuff); armorTimer.Start(); // Do more stuff ... } // Some where else in code public void ArmorTimer_Complete() { character.RemoveEffect(armorBuff); } public class ArmorBuff implements Effect { public void applyTo(Character character) { character.changeArmor(20); } public void removeFrom(Character character) { character.changeArmor(-20); } } Ok, so this example would buff the Characters armor for 5 seconds. Easy to get working. But what about effects that change over the duration of the effect being applied. Two examples come to mind: Damage Over Time: 200 damage every second for 3 seconds. I could mimic this by applying an Effect that lasts for 1 second and has a counter set to 3, then when it is removed it could deal 200 damage, clone itself, decrement the counter of the clone, and apply the clone to the character. If it repeats this until the counter is 0, then you got a damage over time ability. I'm not a huge fan of this approach, but it does describe the behavior exactly. Degenerating Speed Boost: Gain a speed boost that degrades over 3 seconds until you return to your normal speed. This is a bit harder. I can basically do the same thing as above except having timers set to some portion of a second, such that they occur fast enough to give the appearance of degenerating smoothly over time (even though they are really just stepping down incrementally). I feel like you could get away with only 12 steps over a second (maybe less, I would have to test it and see), but this doesn't seem very elegant to me. The only other way to implement this effect would be to change the system so that the Character checks the _effects collection for effects that alter any of the properties any time that they are being used. I could handle this in functions like getCurrentSpeed() and getCurrentArmor(), but you can imagine how much of a hassle it would be to have that kind of overhead every time you want to do a calculation with movement speed (which would be every time you move your character). Is there a better way to deal with these kinds of effects or events?

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• Understanding the levels of computing

  - by RParadox

  Sorry, for my confused question. I'm looking for some pointers. Up to now I have been working mostly with Java and Python on the application layer and I have only a vague understanding of operating systems and hardware. I want to understand much more about the lower levels of computing, but it gets really overwhelming somehow. At university I took a class about microprogramming, i.e. how processors get hard-wired to implement the ASM codes. Up to now I always thought I wouldn't get more done if learned more about the "low level". One question I have is: how is it even possible that hardware gets hidden almost completely from the developer? Is it accurate to say that the operating system is a software layer for the hardware? One small example: in programming I have never come across the need to understand what L2 or L3 Cache is. For the typical business application environment one almost never needs to understand assembler and the lower levels of computing, because nowadays there is a technology stack for almost anything. I guess the whole point of these lower levels is to provide an interface to higher levels. On the other hand I wonder how much influence the lower levels can have, for example this whole graphics computing thing. So, on the other hand, there is this theoretical computer science branch, which works on abstract computing models. However, I also rarely encountered situations, where I found it helpful thinking in the categories of complexity models, proof verification, etc. I sort of know, that there is a complexity class called NP, and that they are kind of impossible to solve for a big number of N. What I'm missing is a reference for a framework to think about these things. It seems to me, that there all kinds of different camps, who rarely interact. The last few weeks I have been reading about security issues. Here somehow, much of the different layers come together. Attacks and exploits almost always occur on the lower level, so in this case it is necessary to learn about the details of the OSI layers, the inner workings of an OS, etc.

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• Keeping your options open in a cloud solution

  - by BuckWoody

  In on-premises solutions we have the full range of options open for a given computing solution – but we don’t always take advantage of them, for multiple reasons. Data goes in a Relational Database Management System, files go on a share, and e-mail goes to the Exchange server. Over time, vendors (including ourselves) add in functionality to one product that allow non-standard use of the platform. For example, SQL Server (and Oracle, and others) allow large binary storage in or through the system – something not originally intended for an RDBMS to handle. There are certainly times when this makes sense, of course, but often these platform hammers turn every problem into a nail. It can make us “lazy” in our design – we sometimes don’t take the time to learn another architecture because the one we’ve spent so much time with can handle what we want to do. But there’s a distinct danger here. In nature, when a population shares too many of the same traits, it can cause a complete collapse if a situation exploits a weakness shared by that population. The same is true with not using the righttool for the job in a computing environment. Your company or organization depends on your knowledge as a professional to select the best mix of supportable, flexible, cost-effective technologies to solve their problems, whether you’re in an architect role or not.  So take some time today to learn something new. The way I do this is to select a given problem, and try to solve it with a technology I’m not familiar with. For instance – create a Purchase Order system in Excel, then in Hadoop or MongoDB, or even in flat-files using PowerShell as an interface. No, I’m not suggesting any of these architectures are the proper way to solve the PO problem, but taking something concrete that you know well and applying that meta-knowledge to another platform will assist you in exercising the “little grey cells” and help you and your organization understand what is open to you. And of course you can do all of this on-premises – but my recommendation is to check out a cloud platform (my suggestion would of course be Windows Azure :) ) and try it there. Most providers (including Microsoft) provide free time to do that.

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• Oracle Brings Java to iOS Devices (and Android too)

  - by Shay Shmeltzer

  Java developer, did you ever wish that you can take your Java skills and apply them to building applications for iOS mobile devices? Well, now you can! With the new Oracle ADF Mobile solution, Oracle has created a unique technology that allows developers to use the Java language and develop applications that install and run on both iOS and Android mobile devices. The solution is based on a thin native container that installs as part of your application. The container is able to run the same application you develop unchanged on both Android and iOS devices. One part of the container is a headless lightweight JVM based on the Java ME CDC technology. This allows the execution of Java code on your mobile device. Java is used for building business logic, accessing local SQLite encrypted database, and invoking and interacting with remote services. Java concept on the UI too To further help transition Java developers to mobile developers, ADF Mobile borrows familiar concepts from the world of JSF to make the UI development experience simpler. The user interface layer of Oracle ADF Mobile is rendered with HTML5 which delivers native user experience on the devices, including animations and gesture support. Using a set of rich components, developers can create mobile pages without needing to write low level HTML5 and JavaScript code. The components cover everything from simple controls such as text fields, date pickers, buttons and links, to advanced data visualization components such as graphs, gauges and maps, and including unique mobile UI patterns such as lists, and toggle selectors. Want to see the components in action? Access this demo instance from your mobile device. Need to further customize the look and feel? You can use CSS3 to achieve this. A controller layer - similar in functionality to the JSF controller - allows developer to simplify the way they build navigation between pages. The logic behind the pages is written in managed beans with various scopes – again similar to the JSF approach. Need to interact with device features like camera, SMS, Contacts etc? Oracle conveniently packaged access to these services in a set of services that you can just drag and drop into your pages as buttons and links, or code into your managed beans Java calls to activate. Underneath the covers this layer is implemented using the open source phonegap solution. With the new Oracle ADF Mobile solution, transferring your Java skills into the Mobile world has become much easier. Check out this development experience demo. And then go and download JDeveloper and the ADF Mobile extension and try it out on your own. For more on ADF Mobile, see the ADF Mobile OTN page.

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• Is there a factory pattern to prevent multiple instances for same object (instance that is Equal) good design?

  - by dsollen

  I have a number of objects storing state. There are essentially two types of fields. The ones that uniquely define what the object is (what node, what edge etc), and the others that store state describing how these things are connected (this node is connected to these edges, this edge is part of these paths) etc. My model is updating the state variables using package methods, so all these objects act as immutable to anyone not in Model scope. All Objects extend one base type. I've toyed with the idea of a Factory approach which accepts a Builder object and constructs the applicable object. However, if an instance of the object already exists (ie would return true if I created the object defined by the builder and passed it to the equal method for the existing instance) the factory returns the current object instead of creating a new instance. Because the Equal method would only compare what uniquely defines the type of object (this is node A to node B) but won't check the dynamic state stuff (node A is currently connected to nodes C and E) this would be a way of ensuring anyone that wants my Node A automatically knows its state connections. More importantly it would prevent aliasing nightmares of someone trying to pass an instance of node A with different state then the node A in my model has. I've never heard of this pattern before, and it's a bit odd. I would have to do some overriding of serialization methods to make it work (ensure that when I read in a serilized object I add it to my facotry list of known instances, and/or return an existing factory in its place), as well as using a weakHashMap as if it was a weakHashSet to know whether an instance exists without worrying about a quasi-memory leak occuring. I don't know if this is too confusing or prone to its own obscure bugs. One thing I know is that plugins interface with lowest level hardware. The plugins have to be able to return state that is different than my memory; to tell my memory when its own state is inconsistent. I believe this is possible despite their fetching objects that exist in my memory; we allow building of objects without checking their consistency with the model until the addToModel is called anyways; and the existing plugins design was written before all this extra state existed and worked fine without ever being aware of it. Should I just be using some other design to avoid this crazyness? (I have another question to that affect that I'm posting).

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• Solaris 11

  - by user9154181

  Oracle has a strict policy about not discussing product features until they appear in shipping product. Now that Solaris 11 is publically available, it is time to catch up. I will be shortly posting articles on a variety of new developments in the Solaris linkers and related bits: 64-bit Archives After 40+ years of Unix, the archive file format has run out of room. The ar and link-editor (ld) commands have been enhanced to allow archives to grow past their previous 32-bit limits. Guidance The link-editor is now willing and able to tell you how to alter your link lines in order to build better objects. Stub Objects This is one of the bigger projects I've undertaken since joining the Solaris group. Stub objects are shared objects, built entirely from mapfiles, that supply the same linking interface as the real object, while containing no code or data. You can link to them, but cannot use them at runtime. It was pretty simple to add this ability to the link-editor, but the changes to the OSnet in order to apply them to building Solaris were massive. I discuss how we came to invent stub objects, how we apply them to build the OSnet in a more parallel and scalable manner, and about the follow on opportunities that have emerged from the new stub proto area we created to hold them. The elffile Utility A new standard Solaris utility, elffile is a variant of the file utility, focused exclusively on linker related files. elffile is of particular value for examining archives, as it allows you to find out what is inside them without having to first extract the archive members into temporary files. This release has been a long time coming. I joined the Solaris group in late 2005, and this will be my first FCS. From a user perspective, Solaris 11 is probably the biggest change to Solaris since Solaris 2.0. Solaris 11 polishes the ground breaking features from Solaris 10 (DTrace, FMA, ZFS, Zones), and uses them to add a powerful new packaging system, numerous other enhacements and features, along with a huge modernization effort. I'm excited to see it go out into the world. I hope you enjoy using it as much as we did creating it. Software is never done. On to the next one...

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• JavaOne Session Report - Java ME SDK 3.2

  - by Janice J. Heiss

  Oracle Product Manager for Java ME SDK, Sungmoon Cho, presented a session, "Developing Java Mobile and Embedded Applications with Java ME SDK 3.2,” wherein he covered the basic new features of the Java ME Platform SDK 3.2, a state-of-the-art toolbox for developing mobile and embedded applications. The session began with a summary of the four main components of Java ME SDK. A device emulator allows developers to quickly run and test applications before commercialization. It supports CLDC/MIDP CLDC/IMP.NG and CLC/AGUI. A development environment assists writing, running debugging and deploying and enables on-device debugging. Samples provide developers with useful codes and frameworks. IDE Plugins – NetBeans and Eclipse – equip developers with CPU Profiler, Memory Monitor, Network Monitor, and Device Selector. This means that manual integration is no longer necessary. Cho then talked about the Java ME SDK’s on-device tooling architecture: * Java ME SDK provides an architecture ideal for on-device-debugging.* Device Manager plays the central role by managing different devices whether it is the emulator or a device that Oracle provides or recommends or a third party device as long as the devices have a Java Runtime that supports the protocol that is designated.* The Emulator provides an accurate emulation, since it uses the same code base used in Oracle’s Java ME runtime.* The Universal Emulator Interface (UEI) makes it easy for IDEs to detect the platform.He then focused on the Java ME SDK release highlights, which include: * Implementation and support for the new Oracle® Java Wireless Client 3.2 runtime and the Oracle® Java ME Embedded runtime. A full emulation for the runtime is provided.* Support for JSR 228, the Information Module Profile-Next Generation API (IMP-NG). This is a new profile for embedded devices. * A new Custom Device Skin Creator.* An Eclipse plugin for CLDC/MIDP.* Profiling, Network monitoring, and Memory monitoring are now integrated with the NetBeans profiling tools.* Java ME SDK Update CenterCho summarized the main features: IDE Integration (NetBeans and Eclipse) enables developers to write, run, profile, and debug their applications on their favorite IDE. CPU ProfilerThis enables developers to more quickly detect the hot spot and where CPU time is being used. They can double click the method to jump directly into the source code.Memory Monitor Developers can monitor objects and memory usage in real time.Debugger on the Emulator and DeviceDevelopers can run their applications step by step, and inspect the variables to pinpoint the problem. The debugging can take place either on the emulator or the device.Embedded Application DevelopmentIMP-NG, Device Access, Logging, and AMS API Support are now available.On-Device ToolingConnect your device to your computer, and run and debug the application right on your device.Custom Device Skin CreatorDefine your own device and test on an environment that is closest to your target device. The informative session concluded with a demo that showed more concretely how to apply the new features in Java ME SDK 3.2.

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• If most of team can't follow the architecture, what do you do?

  - by Chris

  Hi all, I'm working on a greenfields project with two other developers. We're all contractors, and myself and one other just started working on the project while the orginal one has been doing most of the basic framework coding. In the past month, my fellow programmer and I have been just frustrated by the design descisions done by our co-worker. Here's a little background information: The application at face value appeared to be your standard n-layered web application using C# on the 3.5 framework. We have a data layer, business layer and a web interface. But as we got deeper into the project we found some very interesting things that have caused us some troubles. There is a custom data access sqlHelper type base which only accepts dictionary key/valued entries and returns only data tables. There are no entity objects, but there are some massive objects which do everything and then are tossed into session for persitance. The general idea is that the pages (.aspx) don't do anything, while the controls (.ascx) do everything. The general flow is that a client clicks on a button, which goes to a user control base which passes a process request to the 'BLL' class which goes to the page processor, which then goes to a getControlProcessor, which at last actually processes the request. The request itself is made up of a dictionary which is passing a string valued method name, stored procedure name, a control name and possibly a value. All switching of the processing is done by comparing the string values of the control names and method names. Pages are linked together via a common header control that uses a combination of javascript and tables to create a hyperlink effect. And as I found out yesterday, a simple hyperlink between one page and another does not work because of the need to have quite a bit of information in session to determine which control to display on a page. My fellow programmer and I both believe that this is a strange and uncommon approach to web application development. Both of us have been in this business for over five years and neither of us have seen this approach. My question is this, how would we approach our co-worker and voice our concerns and what should we do if he does not want to accept the criteic? We both do not want to insult the work that has been done, but feel that going forward will create a nightmare for development. Thanks for your comments.

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• Keep coding the wrong way to remain consistent? [closed]

  - by bwalk2895

  Possible Duplicate: Code maintenance: keeping a bad pattern when extending new code for being consistent, or not? To keep things simple let's say I am responsible for maintaining two applications, AwesomeApp and BadApp (I am responsible for more and no that is not their actual names). AwesomeApp is a greenfield project I have been working on with other members on my team. It was coded using all the fancy buzzwords, Multilayer, SOA, SOLID, TDD, and so on. It represents the direction we want to go as a team. BadApp is a application that has been around for a long time. The architecture suffers from many sins, namely everything is tightly coupled together and it is not uncommon to get a circular dependency error from the compiler, it is almost impossible to unit test, large classes, duplicate code, and so on. We have a plan to rewrite the application following the standards established by AwesomeApp, but that won't happen for a while. I have to go into BadApp and fix a bug, but after spending months coding what I consider correctly, I really don't want do continue perpetuate bad coding practices. However, the way AwesomeApp is coded is vastly different from the way BadApp is coded. I fear implementing the "correct" way would cause confusion for other developers who have to maintain the application. Question: Is it better to keep coding the wrong way to remain consistent with the rest of the code in the application (knowing it will be replaced) or is it better to code the right way with an understanding it could cause confusion because it is so much different? To give you an example. There is a large class (1000+ lines) with several functions. One of the functions is to calculate a date based on an enumerated value. Currently the function handles all the various calculations. The function relies on no other functionality within the class. It is self contained. I want to break the function into smaller functions (at the very least) and put them into their own classes and hide those classes behind an interface (at the most) and use the factory pattern to instantiate the date classes. If I just broke it out into smaller functions within the class it would follow the existing coding standard. The extra steps are to start following some of the SOLID principles.

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• After startup, display reverts to one desktop duplicated on both screens

  - by Skilldrick

  I have a Samsung R530 laptop. I'm actually running Linux Mint, which is based on Ubuntu (which is why I thought it would be OK to post this here). I'm now getting exactly the same problem on Ubuntu 10.10. I've got it setup with a secondary LCD monitor, and I've changed the display settings so the laptop screen and monitor are at optimal resolution, with the desktop shared between them. After startup though (typically around 10-30 seconds) the display reverts to 1024 x 768 on both screens, and the display is duplicated (i.e. both screens show the same thing). I think this is something to do with my video card, as I had the same problem when I was running Arch Linux. Any ideas? Edit: 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Memory Controller Hub (rev 09) 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09) 00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09) 00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03) 00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03) 00:1a.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6 (rev 03) 00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03) 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03) 00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03) 00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 03) 00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03) 00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03) 00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03) 00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03) 00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 93) 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation ICH9M LPC Interface Controller (rev 03) 00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation ICH9M/M-E SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03) 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03) 02:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01) 04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8040 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller It seems it's Intel, not Nvidia. I have a current work around, which is to have a launcher to a script containing xrandr --output LVDS1 --mode 1366x768 --output HDMI1 --mode 1280x1024 --left-of LVDS1 on my desktop, and to run it after the displays revert, but it's not ideal.

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• Notes - Part I - Say Hello from Java

  - by Silviu Turuga

  Sometimes we need to take small notes to remember things, one way to do this is to use stick notes and have them all around our desktop. But what happening if you have a lot of notes and a small office? You'll need a piece of software that will sort things for you and also it will provide you a quick way to retrieve the notes when need. Did I mention that this will keep your desktop clean and also will reduce paper waste? During the next days we'll gonna create an application that will let you manage your notes, put them in different categories etc. I'll show you step by step what do you need to do and finally you'll have the application run on multiple systems, such as Mac, Windows, Linux, etc. The only pre-requisition for this lesson is to have JDK 7 with JavaFX installed and an IDE, preferably NetBeans. I'll call this application Notes…. Part I - Say Hello from Java  From NetBeans go to Files->New Project Chose JavaFX->JavaFX FXML Application Project Name: Notes FXML name: NotesUI Check Create Application Class and name it Main After this the project is created and you'll see the following structure As a best practice I advice you to have your code in your own package instead of the default one. right click on Source Packages and chose New->Java Package name it something like this: com.turuga.notes and click Next after the package is created, select all the 3 files from step #3 and drag them over the new package chose Refactor, as this will make sure all the references are correctly moved inside the new package now you should have the following structure if you'll try to run the project you'll get an error: Unable to find class: Main right click on project name Notes and click properties go to Run and you'll see Application Class set to Main, but because we have defined our own packages, this location has been change, so click on Browse and the correct one appear: com.turuga.notes.Main last modification before running the project is to right click on NotesUI.fxml and chose Edit (if you'll double click it will open in JavaFX Scene Builder) look around line 9 and change fx:controller="NotesUIController" to fx:controller="com.turuga.notes.NotesUIController" now you are ready to run it and you should see the following On the next lesson we'll continue to play with NetBeans and start working on the interface of our project

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• Could I be going crazy with Event Handlers? Am I going the "wrong way" with my design?

  - by sensae

  I guess I've decided that I really like event handlers. I may be suffering a bit from analysis paralysis, but I'm concerned about making my design unwieldy or running into some other unforeseen consequence to my design decisions. My game engine currently does basic sprite-based rendering with a panning overhead camera. My design looks a bit like this: SceneHandler Contains a list of classes that implement the SceneListener interface (currently only Sprites). Calls render() once per tick, and sends onCameraUpdate(); messages to SceneListeners. InputHandler Polls the input once per tick, and sends a simple "onKeyPressed" message to InputListeners. I have a Camera InputListener which holds a SceneHandler instance and triggers updateCamera(); events based on what the input is. AgentHandler Calls default actions on any Agents (AI) once per tick, and will check a stack for any new events that are registered, dispatching them to specific Agents as needed. So I have basic sprite objects that can move around a scene and use rudimentary steering behaviors to travel. I've gotten onto collision detection, and this is where I'm not sure the direction my design is going is good. Is it a good practice to have many, small event handlers? I imagine going the way I am that I'd have to implement some kind of CollisionHandler. Would I be better off with a more consolidated EntityHandler which handles AI, collision updates, and other entity interactions in one class? Or will I be fine just implementing many different event handling subsystems which pass messages to each other based on what kind of event it is? Should I write an EntityHandler which is simply responsible for coordinating all these sub event handlers? I realize in some cases, such as my InputHandler and SceneHandler, those are very specific types of events. A large portion of my game code won't care about input, and a large portion won't care about updates that happen purely in the rendering of the scene. Thus I feel my isolation of those systems is justified. However, I'm asking this question specifically approaching game logic type events.

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• is a factory pattern to prevent multuple instances for same object (instance that is Equal) good design?

  - by dsollen

  I have a number of objects storing state. There are essentially two types of fields. The ones that uniquly define what the object is (what node, what edge etc), and the oens that store state describing how these things are connected (this node is connected to these edges, this edge is part of these paths) etc. My model is updating the state variables using package methdos, so these objects all act as immutable to anyone not in Model scope. All Objects extend one base type. I've toyed with the idea of a Factory approch which accepts a Builder object and construct the applicable object. However, if an instance of the object already exists (ie would return true if I created the object defined by the builder and passed it to the equal method for the existing instance) the factory returns the current object instead of creating a new instance. Because the Equal method would only compare what uniquly defines the type of object (this is node A nto node B) but won't check the dynamic state stuff (node A is currently connected to nodes C and E) this would be a way of ensuring anyone that wants my Node A automatically knows it's state connections. More importantly it would prevent aliasing nightmares of someone trying to pass an instance of node A with different state then the node A in my model has. I've never heard of this pattern before, and it's a bit odd. I would have to do some overiding of serlization methods to make it work (ensure when I read in a serilized object I add it to my facotry list of known instances, and/or return an existing factory in it's place), as well as using a weakHashMap as if it was a weakHashSet to know rather an instance exists without worrying about a quasi-memory leak occuring. I don't know if this is too confusing or prone to it's own obscure bugs. One thing I know is that plugins interface with lowest level hardware. The plugins have to be able to return state taht is different then my memory; to tell my memory when it's own state is inconsistent. I believe this is possible despit their fetching objects that exist in my memory; we allow building of objects without checking their consistency with the model until the addToModel is called anyways; and the existing plugins design was written before all this extra state existed and worked fine without ever being aware of it. Should I just be using some other design to avoid this crazyness? (I have another question to that affect I'm posting).

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• MOSSt 2010 Hosting :: Dialog Platform in SharePoint 2010 & How to Open the Edit Form Dialog for List Item

  - by mbridge

  One of the New User Interface Platforms in SharePoint 2010 is ‘The Dialog Platform’ A dialog is essentially a <div> which gets visible on demand and renders the HTML using a background overlay creating a modal dialog like user experience. We can show an existing div from within the page or a different page using a URL inside the dialogs. When we pass the URL to the dialog it looks for the Querystring parameter “IsDlg=1”. If this parameters exists than it would dynamically load the "/_layouts/styles/dlgframe.css” file. This file overrides the “s4-notdlg” class items as “display:none”, which means that all items with this class would not get displayed in Dialog Mode.  So if we go to the v4.master page we can see that this class is used by the Ribbon control to hide the ribbon when in dialog mode: How to open the Edit Form Dialog for List Item: In SharePoint 2010 The URL for opening the Edit Form of any list item looks like something like this : http://intranet.contoso.com/<SiteName>/Lists/<ListName>/EditForm.aspx?ID=1&IsDlg=1 ID is the list item row identifier and as discussed above the IsDlg is for the dialog mode. Now to open a dialog we need to use the SP.UI.ModalDialog.showModalDialog method from the ECMAScript Client Object model and pass in the url of the page, width & height of the dialog and also a callback function in case we want some code to run after the dialog is closed. <script type="text/javascript">          //Handle the DialogCallback callback               function DialogCallback(dialogResult, returnValue){               }             //Open the Dialog           function OpenEditDialog(id){             var options = { url:&quot;http://intranet.contoso.com/<SiteName>/Lists/<ListName>/EditForm.aspx?ID=&quot; + id + &quot;&amp;IsDlg=1&quot;,              width: 700,              height: 700,              dialogReturnValueCallback: DialogCallback              };             SP.UI.ModalDialog.showModalDialog(options);           } </script> The .js files for the ECMAScript Object Model (SP.js, SP.Core.js, SP.Ribbon.js, and SP.Runtime.js ) are installed in the %ProgramFiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\14\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS directory. Here is a good MSDN link explaining the Client Object Model Distribution and Deployment options available in SharePoint 2010 and this is the lowest costSharePoint 2010 Provider.

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• Ad-hoc reporting similar to Microstrategy/Pentaho - is OLAP really the only choice (is OLAP even sufficient)?

  - by TheBeefMightBeTough

  So I'm getting ready to develop an API in Java that will provide all dimensions, metrics, hierarchies, etc to a user such that they can pick and choose what they want (say, e.g., dimensions of Location (a store) and Weekly, and the metric Product Sales $), provide their choices to the api, and have it spit out an object that contains the answer to their question (the object would probably be a set of cells). I don't even believe there will be much drill up/down. The data warehouse the APIwill interface with is in a standard form (FACT tables, dimensions, star schema format). My question is, is an OLAP framework such as Mondrian the only way to achieve something akin to ad-hoc reporting? I can envisage a really large Cube (or VirtualCube) that contains most of the dimensions and metrics the user could ever want, which would give the illusion of ad-hoc reporting. The problem is that there is a ton of setup to do (so much XML) to get the framework to work with the data. Further it requires specific knowledge, such as MDX, and even moreso learning the framework peculiars (Mondrian API). Finally, I am not positive it will scale much better than simply making queries against a SQL database. OLAP to me feels like very old technology. Is performance really an issue anymore? The alternative I can think of would be dynamic SQL. If the existing tables in the data warehouse conform to a naming scheme (FACT_, DIM_, etc), or if a very simple config file/ database table containing config information existed that stored which tables are fact tables, which are dimensions, and what metrics are available, then couldn't the api read from that and assembly the appropriate sql query? Would this necessarily be harder than learning MDX, Mondrian (or another OLAP framework), and creating all the cubes? In general, I feel that OLAP is at the same time too powerful (supports drill up/down, complex functions) and outdated and am reluctant to base my architecture on it. However, I am unsure if the alternative(s), such as rolling my own ad-hoc reporting framework using dynamic SQL would remove any complexity while still fulfilling requirements, both functional and non-functional (e.g., scalability; some FACT tables have many millions of rows). I also wonder about other techniques (e.g., hive). Has anyone here tried to do ad-hoc reporting? Any advice? I expect this project to take a pretty long time (3 months min, but probably longer), so I just do not want to commit to an architecture without being absolutely sure of its pros and cons. Thanks so much.

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