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• JavaOne Latin America 2011: Keynotes, Sessions, Hands-on Lab, Geek Bike Ride, etc.

  - by arungupta

  After a very successful JavaOne San Francisco, the first JavaOne on the road for 2011 is heading to Latin America next week. There are 59 sessions delivered by several rock star speakers and with 60% sessions delivered by the local community. There are strategy, technical and community keynotes. The community keynote on Thursday will particularly be lot of fun with appearances from Java Champions, JUG leaders, jHome, and several others. Also check out the Exhibitor Floor Plan and don't forget to Register! The complete session schedule gives an overview for the list of technical sessions and hands-on lab. There are several Java EE, GlassFish, and WebLogic sessions and are highlighted below: Tuesday, Dec 6 Oracle WebLogic Server XML-Free Programming: Java Server and Client Development without <> Java EE Application in Production: Tips and Tricks to achieve zero downtime Web Applications and Wicket Scala on GlassFish and Java EE 6 REST and Java best practices, issues and solutions for the Enterprise Building a RESTful Web Application with JAX-RS and Ext JS 4 Wednesday, Dec 7 Oracle GlassFish Server in the Virtual World JAX-RS 2.0: What's in JSR 339 ? JSF 343: What's coming in Java Message Service 2.0 ? The Great News of JSF 2.0! Thursday, Dec 8 Servlet 3.1 Update Develop, Deploy, and Monitor a Java EE 6 Application with Clustered GlassFish 3.1 Migrating from EJB/SOAP to REST with JAX-RS: The Case of the Central Bank of Brazil GlassFish REST Administration Back End: An Insider look at a real REST Application Scripting and Agile Java EE Applications with Jython And this is Brazil so a fun element is important. There are the usual Caiprihinas, Churrascaria, late night social dinners, community engagement, and multiple other fun activities. Fabiane Nardon and SOUJava gang are also organizing a Geek Bike Ride on the Sunday (Dec 4th) before JavaOne. The 20k ride (map) starts at 7am and goes through the streets of Sao Paulo. This is an opportunity to meet some of the JavaOne speakers and attendees outside the conference. They've even designed a t-shirt and 32 geeks have signed up so far. I'm glad my discussion with Fabiane during FISL early this year for arranging this bike ride is finally taking shape! I'm definitely looking forward to it and will be bringing nice fruity Odwalla bars for all the riders. Be there to ride with me and many others :-) Stay updated by following @oracledobrasil and @javaoneconf. I'll be there, will you ? Don't wait and register now! And in case you are interested in reading about the experience from last year ... it was lot of fun! Just check out a collage of pictures yourself ... And the complete album at:

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• What are they buying &ndash; work or value?

  - by Jamie Kurtz

  When was the last time you ordered a pizza like this: “I want the high school kid in the back to do the following… make a big circle with some dough, curl up the edges, then put some sauce on it using a small ladle, then I want him to take a handful of shredded cheese from the metal container and spread it over the circle and sauce, then finally I want the kid to place 36 pieces of pepperoni over the top of the cheese” ?? Probably never. My typical pizza order usually goes more like this: “I want a large pepperoni pizza”. In the world of software development, we try so hard to be all things agile. We: Write lots of unit tests We refactor our code, then refactor it some more We avoid writing lengthy requirements documents We try to keep processes to a minimum, and give developers freedom And we are proud of our constantly shifting focus (i.e. we’re “responding to change”) Yet, after all this, we fail to really lean and capitalize on one of agile’s main differentiators (from the twelve principles behind the Agile Manifesto): “Working software is the primary measure of progress.” That is, we foolishly commit to delivering tasks instead of features and bug fixes. Like my pizza example above, we fall into the trap of signing contracts that bind us to doing tasks – rather than delivering working software. And the biggest problem here… by far the most troubling outcome… is that we don’t let working software be a major force in all the work we do. When teams manage to ruthlessly focus on the end product, it puts them on the path of true agile. It doesn’t let them accidentally write too much documentation, or spend lots of time and money on processes and fancy tools. It forces early testing that reveals problems in the feature or bug fix. And it forces lots and lots of customer interaction.  Without that focus on the end product as your deliverable… by committing to a list of tasks instead of a list features and bug fixes… you are doomed to NOT be agile. You will end up just doing stuff, spending time on the keyboard, burning time on timesheets. Doing tasks doesn’t force you to minimize documentation. It makes it much harder to respond to change. And it will eventually force you and the client into contract haggling. Because the customer isn’t really paying you to do stuff. He’s ultimately paying for features and bug fixes. And when the customer doesn’t get what they want, responding with “well, look at the contract - we did all the tasks we committed to” doesn’t typically generate referrals or callbacks. In short, if you’re trying to deliver real value to the customer by going agile, you will most certainly fail if all you commit to is a list of things you’re going to do. Give agile what it needs by committing to features and bug fixes – not a list of ToDo items. So the next time you are writing up a contract, remember that the customer should be buying this: Not this:

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• Gaming on Cloud

  - by technomad

  Sometimes I wonder the pundits of cloud computing are way to consumed with the enterprise applications. With all the CAPEX / OPEX, ROI-talk taking the center stage, an opportunity to affect masses directly is getting overlooked. I am a self proclaimed die hard gamer. I come from the generation of gamers who started their journey in DOS games like Wolfenstein 3D and Allan Border Cricket (the latter is still a favorite pastime). In the late 90s, a revolution called accelerated graphics started in DirectX and OpenGL. Games got more advanced. Likes of Quake III and Unreal Tournament became the crown jewels of the industry. But with all these advancements, there started a race. A race of GFX giants ATI and NVIDIA to beat each other for better frame and image quality. Revisions to the graphics chipsets became frequent. Games became eye candies but at the cost of more GPU power / memory. Every eagerly awaited title started demanding more muscle power in graphics and PC hardware. Latest games and all the liquid smooth frame rates became the territory of the once with deep pockets who could spend lavishly on latest hardware. Enthusiasts like yours truly, who couldn’t afford this route, started exploring over-clocking, optimized hardware cooling... etc. to pursue the passion. Ever rising cost of hardware requirements lead to rampant piracy of PC games. Gamers were willing to spend on the latest titles, but the ones with tight budget prefer hardware upgrades against a legal copy of the game. It was also fueled by emergence of the P2P file sharing networks. Then came the era of Xbox and PS3s. It solved the major issue of hardware standardization and provided an alternative to ever increasing hardware costs. I have always admired these consoles, but being born and brought up in a keyboard/mouse environment, I still find it difficult to play first person shooters with a gamepad. I leave the topic of PC v/s Consol gaming for another day, but the bottom line is… PC gamers deserve an equally democratized solution. This is where I think Cloud Computing can come to rescue. It can minimize hardware requirements. Virtually end the software piracy and rationalize costs for gamers. Subscription based models like pay-as-you-play. In game rewards, like extended subscription credits for exceptional gamers (oh yes, I have beaten Xaero on nightmare in Quake III, time and again!) Easy deployment for patches and fixes. Better game AI. The list goes on and on… Fortunately, companies like OnLive are thinking in the same direction. Their gaming service is all set to launch on 17th June 2010 in E3 2010 expo in L.A. I wish them all the luck. I hope they will start a trend which will bring the smiles back on the face of budget gamers with the help of cloud computing.

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• What's about Java?

  - by Silviu Turuga

  What is Java? In very short words, Java is a programming language that let you make an application that can be run on different operating systems, no matter we are talking about Windows, Mac OS, Linux or even embedded devices, such as RaspberryPi. When you compile a Java program, instead of getting a binary output as you get on other programming languages, you'll get a Java intermediate code, called Java bytecode. This is interpreted at run time, by a virtual machine that is specifically for the hardware and operating system you are using. What Java do i need? There are 5 major versions of Java: Java SE(Standard Edition) - this is what I'll use on most of my tutorials. Most of the examples will run on Java 6, but for others you'll need Java 7. Java EE (Enterprise Edition) - used for enterprise development Java ME (Micro Edition) - for running Java on mobile and different embedded devices such as PDAs, TV set-top boxes, printers, etc. Java Embedded - for some embedded devices such as Raspberry Pi, where the resources are limited JavaFX - to develop rich content User Interfaces. This is also something that will use a lot. More detailed information can be found on Oracle's website If you just want to run java applications you'll need the JRE (Java Runtime Environment) installed. If you want to program and create new applications, then you'll need the JDK (Java Development Kit).  How to check if Java is already installed? From command line, if you are on Windows, or from Terminal on Mac enter the following: java -version You should get something like this, if you have java installed on your system: java version "1.6.0_37" Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_37-b06-434-11M3909) Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 20.12-b01-434, mixed mode) Note: your current Java version might be different from mine. More information https://www.java.com/en/download/faq/whatis_java.xml http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_(programming_language) Next steps Install Java SDK Chose an IDE. I recommend NetBeans as it is very easy to use and also let you quickly create the GUI of your application Alternatives are Eclipse, Komodo Edit (for Mac), etc. There are plenty of solutions both free or paid. Resources on web Oracle Tutorials - lot of tutorials and useful resources JavaRanch - forum about java

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• Setting MTU on Exalogic

  - by csoto

  For many reasons, a system administrator may want to change the MTU settings of a server. But in a system like Exalogic which contains lots of interconnected nodes and other various components, it's important to understand how this applies to the different networks. For example, when bringing up bonding of InfiniBand an error like the following may be thrown: Bringing up interface bond1: SIOCSIFMTU: Invalid argument Both scripts ifcfg-ib0 and ifcfg-ib1 (from the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ direectory) have MTU set to 65500, which is a valid MTU value only if all IPoIB slaves operate in connected mode and are configured with the same value, so the line below must be added to both network scripts and then restart the network: CONNECTED_MODE=yes By the way, an error of the form “SIOCSIFMTU: Invalid argument” indicates that the requested MTU was rejected by the kernel. Typically this would be due to it exceeding the maximum value supported by the interface hardware. In that case you must either reduce the MTU to a value that is supported or obtain more capable hardware. This problem has been seen when trying to modify the MTU using the ifconfig command, like the output of the example below: [root@elxxcnxx ~]# ifconfig ib1 mtu 65520 SIOCSIFMTU: Invalid argument It's important to insist that in most cases the nodes must be rebooted after the MTU size has been changed. Although in some circumstances it may work without a reboot, it is not how it is typically documented. Now, in order to achieve a reduced memory consumption and improve performance for network traffic received on IPoIB related interfaces, it is recommend to reduce the MTU value in interface configuration files for IPoIB related bonds from 65520 to 64000. The change needs to be made to interface configuration files under the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts directory and applies to the interface configuration files for bonds over IPoIB related slave devices, for example /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-bond1. However, keep in mind that the numeric portion of the interface filenames that corresponding to IPoIB interfaces is expected to vary across compute nodes and vServers and so cannot be relied upon to identify which interface files are for bonds are over IPoIB rather than EoIB related slave interfaces. To fix these MTU values to the recommended settings, there are very useful instructions and a script on the MOS Note 1624434.1, and it's applicable physical and virtual configurations of Exalogic. Regarding the recommended MTU value for EoIB related interfaces, its maximum appropriate value is 1500. If for some reason a vServer has been created with a higher value (set on the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-bond0 file), then it must be fixed. An error like the following could be thrown under this circumstance: [root@vServer ~]# service network restart ... Bringing up interface bond0:  SIOCSIFMTU: Invalid argument Also an error like the one below can be seen on the /var/log/messages file of the vServer: kernel: T5074835532 [mlx4_vnic] eth1:vnic_change_mtu:360: failed: new_mtu 64000 2026 The MOS Note 1611657.1 is very useful for this purpose.

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• Caching items in Orchard

  - by Bertrand Le Roy

  Orchard has its own caching API that while built on top of ASP.NET's caching feature adds a couple of interesting twists. In addition to its usual work, the Orchard cache API must transparently separate the cache entries by tenant but beyond that, it does offer a more modern API. Here's for example how I'm using the API in the new version of my Favicon module: _cacheManager.Get( "Vandelay.Favicon.Url", ctx => { ctx.Monitor(_signals.When("Vandelay.Favicon.Changed")); var faviconSettings = ...; return faviconSettings.FaviconUrl; }); .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } There is no need for any code to test for the existence of the cache entry or to later fill that entry. Seriously, how many times have you written code like this: var faviconUrl = (string)cache["Vandelay.Favicon.Url"]; if (faviconUrl == null) { faviconUrl = ...; cache.Add("Vandelay.Favicon.Url", faviconUrl, ...); } Orchard's cache API takes that control flow and internalizes it into the API so that you never have to write it again. Notice how even casting the object from the cache is no longer necessary as the type can be inferred from the return type of the Lambda. The Lambda itself is of course only hit when the cache entry is not found. In addition to fetching the object we're looking for, it also sets up the dependencies to monitor. You can monitor anything that implements IVolatileToken. Here, we are monitoring a specific signal ("Vandelay.Favicon.Changed") that can be triggered by other parts of the application like so: _signals.Trigger("Vandelay.Favicon.Changed"); In other words, you don't explicitly expire the cache entry. Instead, something happens that triggers the expiration. Other implementations of IVolatileToken include absolute expiration or monitoring of the files under a virtual path, but you can also come up with your own.

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• As the current draft stands, what is the most significant change the "National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace" will provoke?

  - by mfg

  A current draft of the "National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace" has been posted by the Department of Homeland Security. This question is not asking about privacy or constitutionality, but about how this act will impact developers' business models and development strategies. When the post was made I was reminded of Jeff's November blog post regarding an internet driver's license. Whether that is a perfect model or not, both approaches are attempting to handle a shared problem (of both developers and end users): How do we establish an online identity? The question I ask here is, with respect to the various burdens that would be imposed on developers and users, what are some of the major, foreseeable implementation issues that will arise from the current U.S. Government's proposed solution? For a quick primer on the setup, jump to page 12 for infrastructure components, here are two stand-outs: An Identity Provider (IDP) is responsible for the processes associated with enrolling a subject, and establishing and maintaining the digital identity associated with an individual or NPE. These processes include identity vetting and proofing, as well as revocation, suspension, and recovery of the digital identity. The IDP is responsible for issuing a credential, the information object or device used during a transaction to provide evidence of the subject’s identity; it may also provide linkage to authority, roles, rights, privileges, and other attributes. The credential can be stored on an identity medium, which is a device or object (physical or virtual) used for storing one or more credentials, claims, or attributes related to a subject. Identity media are widely available in many formats, such as smart cards, security chips embedded in PCs, cell phones, software based certificates, and USB devices. Selection of the appropriate credential is implementation specific and dependent on the risk tolerance of the participating entities. Here are the first considered actionable components of the draft: Action 1: Designate a Federal Agency to Lead the Public/Private Sector Efforts Associated with Achieving the Goals of the Strategy Action 2: Develop a Shared, Comprehensive Public/Private Sector Implementation Plan Action 3:Accelerate the Expansion of Federal Services, Pilots, and Policies that Align with the Identity Ecosystem Action 4:Work Among the Public/Private Sectors to Implement Enhanced Privacy Protections Action 5:Coordinate the Development and Refinement of Risk Models and Interoperability Standards Action 6: Address the Liability Concerns of Service Providers and Individuals Action 7: Perform Outreach and Awareness Across all Stakeholders Action 8: Continue Collaborating in International Efforts Action 9: Identify Other Means to Drive Adoption of the Identity Ecosystem across the Nation

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• Rotating 2D Object

  - by Vico Pelaez

  Well I am trying to learn openGL and want to make a triangle move one unit (0.1) everytime I press one of the keyboard arrows. However i want the triangle to turn first pointing the direction where i will move one unit. So if my triangle is pointing up and I press right the it should point right first and then move one unit in the x axis. I have implemented the code to move the object one unit in any direction, however I can not get it to turn pointing to the direction it is going. The initial position of the Triangle is pointing up. #define LENGTH 0.05 float posX = -0.5, posY = -0.5, posZ = 0; float inX = 0.0 ,inY = 0.0 ,inZ = 0.0; // what values???? void rect(){ glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION); glLoadIdentity(); glPushMatrix(); glTranslatef(posX,posY,posZ); glRotatef(rotate, inX, inY, inZ); glBegin(GL_TRIANGLES); glColor3f(0.0, 0.0, 1.0); glVertex2f(-LENGTH,-LENGTH); glVertex2f(LENGTH-LENGTH, LENGTH); glVertex2f(LENGTH, -LENGTH); glEnd(); glPopMatrix(); } void display(){ //Clear Window glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT); glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW); glLoadIdentity(); rect(); glFlush(); } void init(){ glClearColor(0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0); glColor3f(1.0, 1.0, 1.0); } float move_unit = 0.01; bool change = false; void keyboardown(int key, int x, int y) { switch (key){ case GLUT_KEY_UP: if(rotate = 0) posY += move_unit; else{ inX = 1.0; rotate = 0; } break; case GLUT_KEY_RIGHT: if(rotate = -90) posX += move_unit; else{ inX = 1.0; // is this value ok?? rotate -= 90; } break; case GLUT_KEY_LEFT: if(rotate = 90) posX -= move_unit; else{ inX = 1.0; // is this value ok??? rotate += 90; } break; case GLUT_KEY_DOWN: if(rotate = 180) posY -= move_unit; else{ inX = 1.0; rotate += 180; } break; case 27: // Escape button exit(0); break; default: break; } glutPostRedisplay(); } int main(int argc, char** argv){ glutInit(&argc, argv); glutInitDisplayMode(GLUT_SINGLE | GLUT_RGB); glutInitWindowSize(500,500); glutInitWindowPosition(0, 0); glutCreateWindow("Triangle turn"); glutSpecialFunc(keyboardown); glutDisplayFunc(display); init(); glutMainLoop()

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• AWS EC2 Oracle RDB - Storing and managing my data

  - by llaszews

  When create an Oracle Database on the Amazon cloud you will need to store you database files somewhere on the EC2 cloud. There are basically three places where database files can be stored: 1. Local drive - This is the local drive that is part of the virtual server EC2 instance. 2. Elastic Block Storage (EBS) - Network attached storage that appears as a local drive. 3. Simple Storage Server (S3) - 'Storage for the Internet'. S3 is not high speed and intended for store static document type files. S3 can also be used for storing static web page files. Local drives are ephemeral so not appropriate to be used as a database storage device. The leaves EBS which is the best place to store database files. EBS volumes appear as local disk drives. They are actually network-attached to an Amazon EC2 instance. In addition, EBS persists independently from the running life of a single Amazon EC2 instance. If you use an EBS backed instance for your database data, it will remain available after reboot but not after terminate. In many cases you would not need to terminate your instance but only stop it, which is equivalent of shutdown. In order to save your database data before you terminate an instance, you can snapshot the EBS to S3. Using EBS as a data store you can move your Oracle data files from one instance to another. This allows you to move your database from one region or or zone to another. Unfortunately, to scale out your Oracle RDS on AWS you can not have read only replicas. This is only possible with the other Oracle relational database - MySQL. The free micro instances use EBS as its storage. This is a very good white paper that has more details: AWS Storage Options This white paper also discusses: SQS, SimpleDB, and Amazon RDS in the context of storage devices. However, these are not storage devices you would use to store an Oracle database. This slide deck discusses a lot of information that is in the white paper: AWS Storage Options slideshow

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• DBA Best Practices - A Blog Series: Episode 2 - Password Lists

  - by Argenis

    Digital World, Digital Locks One of the biggest digital assets that any company has is its secrets. These include passwords, key rings, certificates, and any other digital asset used to protect another asset from tampering or unauthorized access. As a DBA, you are very likely to manage some of these assets for your company - and your employer trusts you with keeping them safe. Probably one of the most important of these assets are passwords. As you well know, the can be used anywhere: for service accounts, credentials, proxies, linked servers, DTS/SSIS packages, symmetrical keys, private keys, etc., etc. Have you given some thought to what you're doing to keep these passwords safe? Are you backing them up somewhere? Who else besides you can access them? Good-Ol’ Post-It Notes Under Your Keyboard If you have a password-protected Excel sheet for your passwords, I have bad news for you: Excel's level of encryption is good for your grandma's budget spreadsheet, not for a list of enterprise passwords. I will try to summarize the main point of this best practice in one sentence: You should keep your passwords on an encrypted, access and version-controlled, backed-up, well-known shared location that every DBA on your team is aware of, and maintain copies of this password "database" on your DBA's workstations. Now I have to break down that statement to you: - Encrypted: what’s the point of saving your passwords on a file that any Windows admin with enough privileges can read? - Access controlled: This one is pretty much self-explanatory. - Version controlled: Passwords change (and I’m really hoping you do change them) and version control would allow you to track what a previous password was if the utility you’ve chosen doesn’t handle that for you. - Backed-up: You want a safe copy of the password list to be kept offline, preferably in long term storage, with relative ease of restoring. - Well-known shared location: This is critical for teams: what good is a password list if only one person in the team knows where it is? I have seen multiple examples of this that work well. They all start with an encrypted database. Certainly you could leverage SQL Server's native encryption solutions like cell encryption for this. I have found such implementations to be impractical, for the most part. Enter The World Of Utilities There are a myriad of open source/free software solutions to help you here. One of my favorites is KeePass, which creates encrypted files that can be saved to a network share, Sharepoint, etc. KeePass has UIs for most operating systems, including Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android and Windows Phone. Other solutions I've used before worth mentioning include PasswordSafe and 1Password, with the latter one being a paid solution – but wildly popular in mobile devices. There are, of course, even more "enterprise-level" solutions available from 3rd party vendors. The truth is that most of the customers that I work with don't need that level of protection of their digital assets, and something like a KeePass database on Sharepoint suits them very well. What are you doing to safeguard your passwords? Leave a comment below, and join the discussion! Cheers, -Argenis

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• Oracle Virtualization Friday Spotlight - November 8, 2013

  - by Monica Kumar

  Hands-on Private Cloud Simulator In One Hour Submitted by: Doan Nguyen, Senior Principal Product Marketing Director My aeronautics instructor used to say, "you can’t appreciate flying until you take flight." To clarify, this is not about gearing up in a flying squirrel suit and hopping off a cliff (topic for another blog!) but rather about flying an airplane. The idea is to get hands-on with the controls at the cockpit and experience flight before you actually fly a real plane. After the initial 40 hours of flight time, the concept sank in and it really made sense.This concept is what inspired our technical experts to put together the hands-on lab for a private cloud deployment and management self-service model. Yes, we are comparing the lab to a flight simulator! Let’s look at the parallels: To get trained to fly, starting in the simulator gets you off the ground quicker. There is no need to have a real plane to begin with. In a hands-on lab, there is no need for a real server, with networking and real storage installed. All you need is your laptop The simulator is pre-configured, pre-flight check done. Similarly, in a hands-on lab, Oracle VM and Oracle Enterprise Manager are pre-configured and assembled using Oracle VM VirtualBox as the container. Software installations are not needed. After time spent training at the controls, you can really appreciate the practical experience of flying. Along the same lines, the hands-on lab is a guided learning path, without the encumbrances of hardware, software installation, so you can learn about cloud deployment and management.  However, unlike the simulator training, your time investment with the lab is only about an hour and not 40 hours! This hands-on lab takes you through private cloud deployment and management using Oracle VM and  Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c in an Infrastructure as a service IaaS model. You will first configure the IaaS cloud as the cloud administrator and then deploy guest virtual machines (VMs) as a self-service user. Then you are ready to take flight into the cloud! Why not step into the cockpit now!

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• Review: Windows 8 - Initial Experience

  - by Tim Murphy

  I originally started this post when I had the Windows 8 preview setup on VirtualBox image.  I have since put the RTM bits on a Dell E6530 that is my new work laptop.  It isn’t a table so I am not getting the touch experience, but as a developer this makes the most sense for the moment. This is the first Windows OS that I have had to spend much time exploring to even get started.  The first thing I ran into was when I clicked on the desktop icon I was lost.  Where is the Start menu? Where are my programs?  How do I get back to the Metro environment?  I finally tried hitting the Windows button and it popped back out to the Metro screen. Once I got past that I found that the look of the Metro interface is clean and well organized.  It should be familiar to anyone who is already using a Zune or Windows Phone 7.  In the Desktop, aside from the lack of the Start button to bring up programs the desktop is just like the Windows 7 environment we are all used to.  I do have to say though that I don’t like popping out to the Metro screen to find program.  I think installers for programs like ones that developers usually work in for a desktop mode will need to give an option for creating a desktop icon and pinning to the task bar of the desktop. One of the things I do really enjoy is having live tiles in the Metro environment.  It is a nice way of feeding my need for constant information.  The one drawback though is that the task bar at the bottom of my screen used to be where I got this information without leaving what I was working on.  It allowed me to see current temperatures and when there were messages waiting.  I have since found that these still work as expected in the Desktop and Toast message keep you up on what is going on in the Metro apps. Thankfully familiar functionality like Alt-Tab and Windows-Tab still work regardless of if apps are in the Metro or the Desktop environment.  Add to this the ability to find any application on the Metro screen by simply typing and things get very comfortable. I also started exploring some of the apps.  If you want see a ton of stats on your team at a glance check out the Sports app.  What games are coming up? Who are the leaders in a number of stats?  The Weather and Finance apps have good features as well and I am sure they will improve as users supply feedback. I have had to install Visual Studio 2010 side-by-side with VS2012 because the Windows Phone 7 SDK would only install on VS2010.  This isn’t a Windows 8 issue per se, but something that you need to be aware of if you are a developer moving to the new ecosystem. The overall experience is a joy despite a few hiccups.  For anyone moving to Windows 8 in on a non-touch laptop or desktop I do suggest this list of keyboard shortcuts.  Enjoy. del.icio.us Tags: Windows 8,Win8,Metro,Review

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• Juggling with JDKs on Apple OS X

  - by Blueberry Coder

  I recently got a shiny new MacBook Pro to help me support our ADF Mobile customers. It is really a wonderful piece of hardware, although I am still adjusting to Apple's peculiar keyboard layout. Did you know, for example, that the « delete » key actually performs a « backspace »? But I disgress... As you may know, ADF Mobile development still requires JDeveloper 11gR2, which in turn runs on Java 6. On the other hand, JDeveloper 12c needs JDK 7. I wanted to install both versions, and wasn't sure how to do it.   If you remember, I explained in a previous blog entry how to install JDeveloper 11gR2 on Apple's OS X. The trick was to use the /usr/libexec/java_home command in order to invoke the proper JDK. In this case, I could have done the same thing; the two JDKs can coexist without any problems, since they install in completely different locations. But I wanted more than just installing JDeveloper. I wanted to be able to select my JDK when using the command line as well. On Windows, this is easy, since I keep all my JDKs in a central location. I simply have to move to the appropriate folder or type the folder name in the command I want to execute. Problem is, on OS X, the paths to the JDKs are... let's say convoluted.  Here is the one for Java 6. /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home The Java 7 path is not better, just different. /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_45.jdk/Contents/Home Intuitive, isn't it? Clearly, I needed something better... On OS X, the default command shell is bash. It is possible to configure the shell environment by creating a file named « .profile » in a user's home folder. Thus, I created such a file and put the following inside: export JAVA_7_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home -v1.7) export JAVA_6_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home -v1.6) export JAVA_HOME=$JAVA_7_HOME alias java6='export JAVA_HOME=$JAVA_6_HOME' alias java7='export JAVA_HOME=$JAVA_7_HOME'  The first two lines retrieve the current paths for Java 7 and Java 6 and store them in two environment variables. The third line marks Java 7 as the default. The last two lines create command aliases. Thus, when I type java6, the value for JAVA_HOME is set to JAVA_6_HOME, for example.  I now have an environment which works even better than the one I have on Windows, since I can change my active JDK on a whim. Here a sample, fresh from my terminal window. fdesbien-mac:~ fdesbien$ java6 fdesbien-mac:~ fdesbien$ java -version java version "1.6.0_65" Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_65-b14-462-11M4609) Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 20.65-b04-462, mixed mode) fdesbien-mac:~ fdesbien$ fdesbien-mac:~ fdesbien$ java7 fdesbien-mac:~ fdesbien$ java -version java version "1.7.0_45" Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_45-b18) Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 24.45-b08, mixed mode) fdesbien-mac:~ fdesbien$ Et voilà! Maximum flexibility without downsides, just I like it. 

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• Video works with 'Try me' but not after install. What is the difference? U12.04LTS,

  - by HarveyP

  My hard drive got corrupted so I did a reinstall. Tested Youtube in FF during 'try me' and it worked - jerky, but it worked. Instal without all the updates (576 outstanding now) in order to get ff installed as per the demo - to no avail. In 'try me' mode ff NEVER crashed! After install ff crashed whilst I was typing in 'youtube' in the address field. When I finally got to youtube - no video. What is the difference between ff in try me and ff after install? Off to try some selected updates now to see if I can see it for myself. In previous installation I had several profiles and aliased ff with -safe-mode switch to simplify startup of most stable ff. Also found that ff startup in graphic mode worked better (but still without video) with all of the extensions disabled and all of the plugins set to "ask" and always denied ... I have SiS graphic card in SiS Motherboard for XP and ancient Hyundai ImageQuest QV770 monitor. I have Ubuntu 12.04.01 LTS 1 day after install with only the immediate upgrades requested to language pack (English UK). Using FR Alternative keyboard. Connected with domestic wifi network from Orange (FT) I really want to use Skype, but won't bother installing it (again) without video as I can do my sms on FB - whilst ff is not crashed ... Update ... Is something overflowing? I have just had to reboot in order to get ff to restart in any way shape or form - restart on crash form generates new crash form, etc. It was however a good half hour before it crashed so some improvement over conditions before disk corruption. I have now installed all of the critical updates (332 recommended updates still outstanding) which included some relating to ff. Still no video. Still crashing - especially when on Grepolis website. Since the re-install I have had a lovely 1024x768 screen, but after last ff crash and reboot I got a message about 'low graphics mode' and 'setting things myself'. I was not sufficiently tuned in at the time to take proper note - I have no doubt I shall see it again and shall report accordingly. I still have only laptop options for my screen and do not know how to rectify this. Spent a few days with ubuntu on a different, newer machine which has now suffered a graphics breakdown. Returned to this old one again, but with new flat screen Monitor. Found SIS drivers for my graphics BUT it is intended for Red Hat 7.2. I chose this over the version for 7.0 because I thought what the hell, I might not be able to do anything with either of them but this is the later one ... The file will not open with software manager - found a similar problem on Overclock but it has not helped me to install this driver. File name is sis_drv.o-410 and it is currently idling away in my Downloads folder ... I have tried the solution offered on another sis problem, but this shows that my xserver-xorg-video-sis driver is up to date. I am now at a loss as to how to proceed if I can't install the latest sis driver from sis ... Does nobody know how FF changes from "try-me" to "installed"? Any time I MUST have video I reboot from the disk again, but this is tedious! Also one of the things I mock most about MS is the constant rebooting ... UPDATE 10/6/2014 I have installed chromium-browser - worse, crashes even more often than ff.I have installed epiphany - better; Video works but not the associated soundtrack.FireFox is version 14.01 in 'try me' and version 29.0 from my install. Would it be useful to try to downgrade FireFox in order to get video?

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• Keep Learning After Your Oracle Training Class is Over - Save 50%!

  - by KJones

  Written by Amit Kumar, Senior Director Oracle University Digital Training        Every training class you take about the latest Oracle application or technology moves you closer to developing the skills you need to succeed. But after class is over, how do you keep up with today’s accelerating pace of innovation? To   To keep with the very latest technological advances, you need an ongoing and flexible training solution.       One that lets you learn during your own downtime.       Knowledge that’s easy to access.       Interactive lessons where you connect with experts.       A simple way to increase your knowledge, on your own time and at your own pace. The new Oracle Learning Streams is the flexible training solution you're looking for. Continuously Learn with Oracle Learning Streams Over time, Oracle Learning Streams help you develop the depth and breadth of knowledge that will give you the tools to become an expert in your field. By taking advantage of comprehensive and frequently updated information, you can keep learning continuously, at your own pace, when it's convenient for you. Sign up today and get 12 months of unlimited access to: •    Hundreds of videos delivered by Oracle experts for fresh and continuous product learning•    Live connections with Oracle's top instructors•    Robust video search capability to find exactly what you’re looking for•    Features that allow you to build your own custom learning queue and request new content Oracle Learning Streams are now available for Oracle Database and Oracle Middleware. Take a moment to preview the content now.  For a Limited Time - Save 50% For a limited time, save 50% when you order Oracle Learning Streams with any other Oracle Classroom, Live Virtual Class or Training On Demand course. Now there is no reason for learning to stop when class is over!

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• Framework for Everything - Where to begin? [Longer post]

  - by SquaredSoft

  Back story of this question, feel free to skip down for the specific question Hello, I've been very interested in the idea of abstract programming the last few years. I've made about 30 attempts at creating a piece of software that is capable of almost anything you throw at it. I've undertook some attempts at this that have taken upwards of a year, while getting close, never releasing it beyond my compiler. This has been something I've always tried wrapping my head around, and something is always missing. With the title, I'm sure you're assuming, "Yes of course you noob! You can't account for everything!" To which I have to reply, "Why not?" To give you some background into what I'm talking about, this all started with doing maybe a shade of gray hat SEO software. I found myself constantly having to create similar, but slightly different sets of code. I've gone through as many iterations of way to communicate on http as the universe has particles. "How many times am I going to have to write this multi-threaded class?" is something I found myself asking a lot. Sure, I could create a class library, and just work with that, but I always felt I could optimize what I had, which often was a large undertaking and typically involved frequent use of the CRTL+A keyboard shortcut, mixed with the delete button. It dawned on me that it was time to invest in a plugin system. This would allow me to simply add snippets of code. as time went on, and I could subversion stuff out, and distribute small chunks of code, rather than something that encompasses only a specific function or design. This comes with its own complexity, of course, and by the time I had finished the software scope for this addition, it hit me that I would want to add to everything in the software, not just a new http method, or automation code for a specific website. Great, we're getting more abstract. However, the software that I have in my mind comes down to a quite a few questions regarding its execution. I have to have some parameters to what I am going to do. After writing what the perfect software would do in my mind, I came up with this as a list of requirements: Should be able to use networking A "Macro" or "Expression system" which would allow people to do something like : =First(=ParseToList(=GetUrl("http://www.google.com?q=helloworld!"), Template.Google)) Multithreaded Able to add UI elements through some type of XML -- People can make their own addons etc. Can use third party API through the plugins, such as Microsoft CRM, Exchange, etc. This would allow the software to essentially be used for everything. Really, any task you wish to automate, in a simple way. Making the UI was as also extremely hard. How do you do all of this? Its very difficult. So my question: With so many attempts at this, I'm out of ideas how to successfully complete this. I have a very specific idea in my mind, but I keep failing to execute it. I'm a self taught programmer. I've been doing it for years, and work professionally in it, but I've never encountered something that would be as complex and in-depth as a system which essentially does everything. Where would you start? What are the best practices for design? How can I avoid constantly having to go back and optimize my software. What can I do to generalize this and draw everything out to completion. These are things I struggle with. P.s., I'm using c# as my main language. I feel like in this example, I might be hitting the outer limit of the language, although, I don't know if that is the case, or if I'm just a bad programmer. Thanks for your time.

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• Loose Coupling and UX Patterns for Applications Integrations

  - by ultan o'broin

  I love that software architecture phrase loose coupling. There’s even a whole book about it. And, if you’re involved in enterprise methodology you’ll know just know important loose coupling is to the smart development of applications integrations too. Whether you are integrating offerings from the Oracle partner ecosystem with Fusion apps or applications coexistence scenarios, loose coupling enables the development of scalable, reliable, flexible solutions, with no second-guessing of technology. Another great book Enterprise Integration Patterns: Designing, Building, and Deploying Messaging Solutions tells us about loose coupling benefits of reducing the assumptions that integration parties (components, applications, services, programs, users) make about each other when they exchange information. Eliminating assumptions applies to UI development too. The days of assuming it’s enough to hard code a UI with linking libraries called code on a desktop PC for an office worker are over. The book predates PaaS development and SaaS deployments, and was written when web services and APIs were emerging. Yet it calls out how using middleware as an assumptions-dissolving technology “glue" is central to applications integration. Realizing integration design through a set of middleware messaging patterns (messaging in the sense of asynchronously communicating data) that enable developers to meet the typical business requirements of enterprises requiring integrated functionality is very Fusion-like. User experience developers can benefit from the loose coupling approach too. User expectations and work styles change all the time, and development is now about integrating SaaS through PaaS. Cloud computing offers a virtual pivot where a single source of truth (customer or employee data, for example) can be experienced through different UIs (desktop, simplified, or mobile), each optimized for the context of the user’s world of work and task completion. Smart enterprise applications developers, partners, and customers use design patterns for user experience integration benefits too. The Oracle Applications UX design patterns (and supporting guidelines) enable loose coupling of the optimized UI requirements from code. Developers can get on with the job of creating integrations through web services, APIs and SOA without having to figure out design problems about how UIs should work. Adding the already user proven UX design patterns (and supporting guidelines to your toolkit means ADF and other developers can easily offer much more than just functionality and be super productive too. Great looking application integration touchpoints can be built with our design patterns and guidelines too for a seamless applications UX. One of Oracle’s partners, Innowave Technologies used loose coupling architecture and our UX design patterns to create an integration for a customer that was scalable, cost effective, fast to develop and kept users productive while paving a roadmap for customers to keep pace with the latest UX designs over time. Innowave CEO Basheer Khan, a Fusion User Experience Advocate explains how to do it on the Usable Apps blog.

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• Why I switch from Asana.com

  - by Anirudha

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/anirugu/archive/2013/10/24/why-i-switch-from-asana.com.aspxI used Asana.com from 1-2 years. have nice experience to use it. it’s not so easy. When I started using it it’s make many confusion. Now I switch from it.   When I first time see I really didn’t understand how to make a private list. There is a icon on top click on it and make it private. After doing that I still not sure if this is working. There is a lot of confusion made that time. I discuss too much to figure out small small things. The UI is interesting but so hard to understand.  What I am looking for is just a list that I can hold private. I would like to share it only if I put them shared and put email address of person to hold them same list. Few days ago I see that My Win8 phone have a app that call Microsoft OneNote. The good thing of this MS app is that I can record my voice in the app. If someone want to make a list for future then he just need to say and this can be recorded.  This is awesome when you feel that Mobile keypad is just not so fast as a normal regular keyboard.   Google docs are another good option to handle this thing. Just make a word file and use it. share it with friend with many option. One best thing is this app have very simply UI then any other apps.   One more alternative is https://trello.com which you hear from joel on their blog http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2011/09/13.html There are many html5 and browser based, mobile based app. Many of them support multi platform feature. this means you can have them from PC to your Pocket. One good thing we all wanted is offline. if you are not online thing will be saved and push back to server when you will be online.   The biggest problem with some apps are they are attractive easy but hard to learn. Their one feature are not clearly defined what he does. This make frustration and confusion to user. When app are not simple to use people start stop trying to learn it. That’s all the problem I have with asana.com If you don’t want to try anything then what about Sticky Notes that is part of Windows 7. This app are still usable since you can store the text on it. If you know any good app to make a task list that provide access from tablet/mobile then put comment here. In the whole world of app there is a lot of app for doing this same thing differently. I mention few of them here. I hope this is nice to describe it.   Thanks for read my post.

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• Collision 2D Quads

  - by Vico Pelaez

  I want to detect collision between two 2D squares, one square is static and the other one moves according to keyboard arrows. I have implemented some code, however nothing happens when they overlap each other and what I tried to achieve in the code was to detect an overlapping between them. I think I am either not understanding the concept really well or that because one of the squares is moving this is not working. Please I would really appreciate your help. Thank you! float x1=0.05 ,Y1=0.05; float x2=0.05 ,Y2=0.05; float posX1 =0.5, posY1 = 0.5; float movX2 = 0.0 , movY2 = 0.0; struct box{ int width=0.1; int heigth=0.1; }; void init(){ glClearColor(0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0); glColor3f(1.0, 1.0, 1.0); } void quad1(){ glTranslatef(posX1, posY1, 0.0); glBegin(GL_POLYGON); glColor3f(0.5, 1.0, 0.5); glVertex2f(-x1, -Y1); glVertex2f(-x1, Y1); glVertex2f(x1,Y1); glVertex2f(x1,-Y1); glEnd(); } void quad2(){ glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION); glLoadIdentity(); glPushMatrix(); glTranslatef(movX2, movY2, 0.0); glBegin(GL_POLYGON); glColor3f(1.5, 1.0, 0.5); glVertex2f(-x2, -Y2); glVertex2f(-x2, Y2); glVertex2f(x2,Y2); glVertex2f(x2,-Y2); glEnd(); glPopMatrix(); } void reset(){ //Reset position of square??? movX2 = 0.0; movY2 = 0.0; collisionB = false; } bool collision(box A, box B){ int leftA, leftB; int rightA, rightB; int topA, topB; int bottomA, bottomB; //Calculate the sides of box A leftA = x1; rightA = x1 + A.width; topA = Y1; bottomA = Y1 + A.heigth; //Calculate the sides of box B leftB = x2; rightB = x2 + B.width; topB = Y1; bottomB = Y1+ B.heigth ; if( bottomA <= topB ) return false; if( topA >= bottomB ) return false; if( rightA <= leftB ) return false; if( leftA >= rightB ) return false; return true; } float move_unit = 0.1; void keyboardown(int key, int x, int y) { switch (key){ case GLUT_KEY_UP: movY2 += move_unit; break; case GLUT_KEY_RIGHT: movX2 += move_unit; break; case GLUT_KEY_LEFT: movX2 -= move_unit; break; case GLUT_KEY_DOWN: movY2 -= move_unit; break; default: break; } glutPostRedisplay(); } void display(){ glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT); glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION); glLoadIdentity(); cuad1(); if (!collision) { cuad2(); } else{ reset(); } glFlush(); } int main(int argc, char** argv){ glutInit(&argc, argv); glutInitDisplayMode(GLUT_SINGLE | GLUT_RGB); glutInitWindowSize(500,500); glutInitWindowPosition(0, 0); glutCreateWindow("Collision Practice"); glutSpecialFunc(keyboardown); glutDisplayFunc(display); init(); glutMainLoop(); }

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• RTS Game Style Application [closed]

  - by Daniel Wynand van Wyk

  My question may seem somewhat odd, but I hope that my specifications will clarify EXACTLY what it is that I am after. I need some help choosing the right tooling for a particular endeavour. My background is in desktop application development and large back-end systems. I have worked primarily on the Microsoft stack using C# and the .Net framework. My goal is to develop a 2D, RTS style, interactive office simulation. The simulation will model various office spaces, office equipment, employees and their interactions with one another. The idea is to abstract the concept of an office completely. Under the hood the application will do many things that are nothing like a game. This includes P2P networking, VPN tunnelling, streaming video, instant messaging, document collaboration, remote screen sharing, file-sharing, virus scanning, VOIP, document scanning, faxing, emailing, distributed computing, content management and much more! A somewhat similar thing has been attempted by IBM, where they created a virtual office in second life. If their attempt was a game, the game-play would be notably horrible, to say the least! The users/players will drive and control my application through the various objects modelled in the simulation. A single application capable of performing all of these various tasks would be a nightmare to navigate for even the most expert user. Using the concept of a game, I can easily separate functionality by assigning them to objects that relate 1-1 with their real world counter-parts. This can greatly simplify computing for novice users, with many added benefits in terms of visibility, transparency of process and centralized configuration. My hope is to make complex computing tasks accessible to all kinds of users and to greatly reduce the cognitive load associated with using the many different utilities and applications inside office settings. The complexity is therefore limited to the complexity of the space in which you find yourself. I want the application to target as many platforms as possible and run on computers that have no accelerated graphics capabilities. The simulation won't contain any of the fancy eye-candy you find in modern games, to the contrary, my "game" will purposefully be clean and simple. The closest thing I could imagine would be an old game like "Theme Hospital" or the first instalment of "The Sims". All the content will be pre-created and not user-generated like Second Life. New functionality will be added via a plugin system. Given my background and nature of my "game", I would like to spend most of my time writing code that does not have to do with the simulated office, as the "game" is really just a glorified application menu. I have done much reading about existing engines, frameworks and tools. I need the help of an experienced game developer who has tried and tested various products over the years who can guide me in the right direction given my very particular needs. I would appreciate any help I can get!

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• Difficulties with rotation of a sprite

  - by Andy

  I want to program a dolphin that jumps and rotates like a real dolphin. Jumping is not the problem, but I don't know how to make the rotation. My dolphin always rests in the same angle while it jumps. But I want that it changes the rotation during the jump, like a real dolphin does. How can I improve the rotation? public class Game1 : Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game { GraphicsDeviceManager graphics; SpriteBatch spriteBatch; Texture2D image, water; float Gravity = 5.0F; float Acceleration = 20.0F; Vector2 Position = new Vector2(1200,720); Vector2 Velocity; float rotation = 0; SpriteEffects flip; Vector2 Speed = new Vector2(0, 0); public Game1() { graphics = new GraphicsDeviceManager(this); Content.RootDirectory = "Content"; graphics.PreferredBackBufferWidth = 1280; graphics.PreferredBackBufferHeight = 720; } protected override void Initialize() { base.Initialize(); } protected override void LoadContent() { spriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(GraphicsDevice); image = Content.Load<Texture2D>("cartoondolphin"); water = Content.Load<Texture2D>("background"); flip = SpriteEffects.None; } protected override void Update(GameTime gameTime) { float VelocityX = 0f; float VelocityY = 0f; float time = (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds; KeyboardState kbState = Keyboard.GetState(); if(kbState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Left)) { rotation = 0; flip = SpriteEffects.None; VelocityX += -5f; } if(kbState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Right)) { rotation = 0; flip = SpriteEffects.FlipHorizontally; VelocityX += 5f; } // jump if the dolphin is under water if(Position.Y >= 670) { if (kbState.IsKeyDown(Keys.A)) { if (flip == SpriteEffects.None) { rotation = 45; VelocityY += 40f; } else { rotation = -45; VelocityY += 40f; } } } else { VelocityY += -10f; } float deltaY = 0; float deltaX = 0; deltaY = Gravity * (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds; deltaX += VelocityX * (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds * Acceleration; deltaY += -VelocityY * (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds * Acceleration; Speed = new Vector2(Speed.X + deltaX, Speed.Y + deltaY); Position += Speed * (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds; Velocity.X = 0; if (Position.Y + image.Height/2 > graphics.PreferredBackBufferHeight) Position.Y = graphics.PreferredBackBufferHeight - image.Height/2; base.Update(gameTime); } protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.CornflowerBlue); spriteBatch.Begin(); spriteBatch.Draw(water, new Rectangle(0, graphics.PreferredBackBufferHeight -100, graphics.PreferredBackBufferWidth, 100), Color.White); spriteBatch.Draw(image, Position, null, Color.White, MathHelper.ToRadians(rotation), new Vector2(image.Width / 2, image.Height / 2), 1, flip, 1); spriteBatch.End(); base.Draw(gameTime); } }

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• What ever happened to the Defense Software Reuse System (DSRS)?

  - by emddudley

  I've been reading some papers from the early 90s about a US Department of Defense software reuse initiative called the Defense Software Reuse System (DSRS). The most recent mention of it I could find was in a paper from 2000 - A Survey of Software Reuse Repositories Defense Software Repository System (DSRS) The DSRS is an automated repository for storing and retrieving Reusable Software Assets (RSAs) [14]. The DSRS software now manages inventories of reusable assets at seven software reuse support centers (SRSCs). The DSRS serves as a central collection point for quality RSAs, and facilitates software reuse by offering developers the opportunity to match their requirements with existing software products. DSRS accounts are available for Government employees and contractor personnel currently supporting Government projects... ...The DoD software community is trying to change its software engineering model from its current software cycle to a process-driven, domain-specific, architecture-based, repository-assisted way of constructing software [15]. In this changing environment, the DSRS has the highest potential to become the DoD standard reuse repository because it is the only existing deployed, operational repository with multiple interoperable locations across DoD. Seven DSRS locations support nearly 1,000 users and list nearly 9,000 reusable assets. The DISA DSRS alone lists 3,880 reusable assets and has 400 user accounts... The far-term strategy of the DSRS is to support a virtual repository. These interconnected repositories will provide the ability to locate and share reusable components across domains and among the services. An effective and evolving DSRS is a central requirement to the success of the DoD software reuse initiative. Evolving DoD repository requirements demand that DISA continue to have an operational DSRS site to support testing in an actual repository operation and to support DoD users. The classification process for the DSRS is a basic technology for providing customer support [16]. This process is the first step in making reusable assets available for implementing the functional and technical migration strategies. ... [14] DSRS - Defense Technology for Adaptable, Reliable Systems URL: http://ssed1.ims.disa.mil/srp/dsrspage.html [15] STARS - Software Technology for Adaptable, Reliable Systems URL: http://www.stars.ballston.paramax.com/index.html [16] D. E. Perry and S. S. Popovitch, “Inquire: Predicate-based use and reuse,'' in Proceedings of the 8th Knowledge-Based Software Engineering Conference, pp. 144-151, September 1993. ... Is DSRS dead, and were there any post-mortem reports on it? Are there other more-recent US government initiatives or reports on software reuse?

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• Are You Meeting Social Customer Service Expectations?

  - by Mike Stiles

  Whether it’s B2B or B2C, one sure path to repeat business is making sure your buyer has a memorably pleasant and successful customer service experience with you. If they get that kind of treatment consistently, that’s called a relationship. And those aren’t broken easily. Social customer service, driven by integrated SRM (social relationship management) technology, is the venue that can effectively connect customers not only to the brand, but to other customers. Positive experiences, once administered, don’t just rest with the recipient. They’re published in the form of public raves and peer-to-peer recommendation, a force far more actionable than push advertising. What’s more, your customers have come to expect access to you and satisfaction from you using social. An NM Incite study shows 83% of Twitter users and 71% of Facebook users expect to get an answer from brands the same day they post to them on their social assets. To make sure you’re responding, you’ve got to have a tech platform that’s set up to moderate and alert so you’ll know ASAP a customer needs help. The more integrated your social enterprise is, the faster you can not only respond, but respond with the answer they’re looking for, because your system is connected to the internal resources that can surface the answer or put wheels in motion to rectify the situation in the shortest amount of time possible. But if you go to the necessary lengths to make sure your customers feel valued and important, will they really reward you? The study says 71% of consumers who got quick and effective responses from companies they contacted via social were more likely to recommend the brand to their friends and followers. So yes, sweeping people off their feet pays big dividends in terms of word-of-mouth marketing. But you should be keenly aware of the reverse side of that coin. Give people a negative experience, either in real world or virtual customer service, and that message is highly likely to get amplified through social channels faster and louder. Only 36% of the NM Incite study’s respondents reported that their problems were solved quickly and effectively. 36%? That’s hardly an impressive number. It gets worse. 10% never got so much as a response - at all. Going back to the relationship analogy, companies that are this deep in the ditch where customer service is concerned are making their girl or boyfriends really easy for a competitor to steal. Given the technology tools and data available right now for having an intimate knowledge of the customer, what products they’ve purchased, likely problems with those products, effective resolutions to those problems, and follow-up communication to gauge satisfaction, there are fewer excuses than ever for making the lifeblood of your business feel like you couldn’t care less. @mikestiles

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• Bowing to User Experience

  As a consumer of geeky news it is hard to check my Google Reader without running into two or three posts about Apples iPad and in particular the changes to the developer guidelines which seemingly restrict developers to using Apples Xcode tool and Objective-C language for iPad apps. One of the alternatives to Objective-C affected, is MonoTouch, an option with some appeal to me as it is based on the Mono implementation of C#. Seemingly restricted is the key word here, as far as I can tell, no official announcement has been made about its fate. For more details around MonoTouch for iPhone OS, check out Miguel de Icazas post: http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2010/Apr-28.html. These restrictions have provoked some outrage as the perception is that Apple is arrogantly restricting developers freedom to create applications as they choose and perhaps unwittingly shortchanging iPhone/iPad users who wont benefit from these now never-to-be-made great applications. Apples response has mostly been to say they are concentrating on providing a certain user experience to their customers, and to do this, they insist everyone uses the tools they approve. Which isnt a surprising line of reasoning given Apple restricts the hardware used and content of the apps already. The vogue term for this approach is curated, as in a benevolent museum director selecting only the finest artifacts for display or a wise gardener arranging the plants in a garden just so. If this is what a curated experience is like it is hard to argue that consumers are not responding. My iPhone is probably the most satisfying piece of technology I own. Coming from the Razr, it really was an revolution in how the form factor, interface and user experience all tied together. While the curated approach reinvented the smart phone genre, it is easy to forget that this is not a new approach for Apple. Macbooks and Macs are Apple hardware that run Apple software. And theyve been successful, but not quite in the same way as the iPhone or iPad (based on early indications). Why not? Well a curated approach can only be wildly successful if the curator a) makes the right choices and b) offers choices that no one else has. Although its advantages are eroding, the iPhone was different from other phones, a unique, focused, touch-centric experience. The iPad is an attempt to define another category of computing. Macs and Macbooks are great devices, but are not fundamentally a different user experience than a PC, you still have windows, file folders, mouse and keyboard, and similar applications. So the big question for Apple is can they hold on to their market advantage, continuing innovating in user experience and stay on top? Or are they going be like Xerox, and the rest of the world says thank you for the windows metaphor, now let me implement that better? It will be exciting to watch, with Android already a viable competitor and Microsoft readying Windows Phone 7. And to close the loop back to the restrictions on developing for iPhone OS. At this point the main target appears to be Adobe and Adobe Flash. Apples calculation is that a) they dont need those developers or b) the developers they want will learn Apples stuff anyway. My guess is that they are correct; that as much as I like the idea of developers having more options, I am not going to buy a competitors product to spite Apple unless that product is just as usable. For a non-technical consumer, I dont know that this conversation even factors into the buying decision. If it did, wed be talking about how Microsoft is trying to retake a slice of market share from the behemoth that is Linux.Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Why doesn't Ubuntu detect my second hard drive?

  - by user93179

  I am new to Linux and to Ubuntu, I was wondering, I have two hard drives setup in SATA ports (non-raid, at least I don't think they are). I installed ubuntu unto the drives fresh without any previous versions or windows at all. However when I got the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS working, all I see is 1 x 120 gigabyte harddrive. Also, not sure if this is important or not, my hard drives are SSD. My computer specs are Asus P9Z77-V-LK Nvidia Geforce GTX 660 TI Intel i5 3570k 3.4 /proc/partitions shows: major minor #blocks name 8 0 117220824 sda 8 1 117219328 sda1 8 16 117220824 sdb 8 17 96256 sdb1 8 18 108780544 sdb2 8 19 8342528 sdb3 11 0 1048575 sr0 and ls -l /sys/block/ | grep -v /virtual/: lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Sep 27 17:26 sda - ../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.2/host0/target0:0:0/0:0:0:0/block/sda lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Sep 27 17:26 sdb - ../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.2/host1/target1:0:0/1:0:0:0/block/sdb lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Sep 27 22:26 sdc - ../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.1/1-1.1:1.0/host6/target6:0:0/6:0:0:0/block/sdc lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Sep 27 22:04 sr0 - ../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.2/host3/target3:0:0/3:0:0:0/block/sr0 sudo file -s /dev/sd*: /dev/sda: x86 boot sector; partition 1: ID=0x7, starthead 32, startsector 2048, 234438656 sectors, code offset 0xc0, OEM-ID " ?", Bytes/sector 190, sectors/cluster 124, reserved sectors 191, FATs 6, root entries 185, sectors 64514 (volumes 32 MB) , physical drive 0x7e, dos 32 MB) , FAT (32 bit), sectors/FAT 749, reserved3 0x800000, serial number 0x35361a2b, unlabeled /dev/sdb2: Linux rev 1.0 ext4 filesystem data, UUID=387761ac-5eba-4d0f-93ba-746a82fb541d (needs journal recovery) (extents) (large files) (huge files) /dev/sdb3: data /dev/sdc: x86 boot sector; partition 1: ID=0xc, active, starthead 0, startsector 8064, 30473088 sectors, code offset 0xc0 /dev/sdc1: x86 boot sector, code offset 0x58, OEM-ID "SYSLINUX", sectors/cluster 64, reserved sectors 944, Media descriptor 0xf8, heads 128, hidden sectors 8064, sectors 30473088 (volumes 32 MB) , FAT (32 bit), sectors/FAT 3720, Backup boot sector 8, serial number 0xf90c12e9, label: "KINGSTON " /dev/sda1: x86 boot sector, code offset 0x52, OEM-ID "NTFS ", sectors/cluster 8, reserved sectors 0, Media descriptor 0xf8, heads 255, hidden sectors 2048, dos 32 MB) , FAT (32 bit), sectors/FAT 749, reserved3 0x800000, serial number 0x35361a2b, unlabeled Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks Another thing I noticed is, when i use gparted to locate my drives, it seems that sda1 is my second drive that I am not detecting when I boot up and my ubuntu + FAT Boot files are installed in sdb1

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