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• Managing accounts on a private website for a real-life community

  - by Smudge

  Hey Pro Webmasters, I'm looking at setting-up a walled-in website for a real-life community of people, and I was wondering if anyone has any experience with managing member accounts for this kind of thing. Some conditions that must be met: This community has a set list of real-life members, each of whom would be eligible for one account on the website. We don't expect or require that they all sign-up. It is purely opt-in, but we anticipate that many of them would be interested in the services we are setting up. Some of the community members emails are known, but some of them have fallen off the grid over the years, so ideally there would be a way for them to get back in touch with us through the public-facing side of the site. (And we'd want to manually verify the identity of anyone who does so). Their names are known, and for similar projects in the past we have assigned usernames derived from their real-life names. This time, however, we are open to other approaches, such as letting them specify their own username or getting rid of usernames entirely. The specific web technology we will use (e.g. Drupal, Joomla, etc) is not really our concern right now -- I am more interested in how this can be approached in the abstract. Our database already includes the full member roster, so we can email many of them generated links to a page where they can create an account. (And internally we can require that these accounts be paired with a known member). Should we have them specify their own usernames, or are we fine letting them use their registered email address to log-in? Are there any paradigms for walled-in community portals that help address security issues if, for example, one of their email accounts is compromised? We don't anticipate attempted break-ins being much of a threat, because nothing about this community is high-profile, but we do want to address security concerns. In addition, we want to make the sign-up process as painless for the members as possible, especially given the fact that we can't just make sign-ups open to anyone. I'm interested to hear your thoughts and suggestions! Thanks!

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• How are you coping with Ubuntu's Unity app launcher? (It auto-hides, can't minimize apps)

  - by Bad Learner

  [Firstly, let me tell you that this cannot be subjective in anyway, as I think at least Ubuntu beginners will have these questions boggling in their mind; and yes, this is a question that has a definite answer - - so, I am completely within the rules.] Okay, coming to the point, I see that Ubuntu uses Unity since v10.xx (netbook edition?) and carried the same to v11.04 & v11.10. As someone who's stuck to Windows for all these years, it's somewhat difficult to cope with Ubuntu's Unity, for the following reasons: [1] The Unity app launcher (to the screen's left) auto-hides when a window is maximized. [2]- And once launched, apps cannot be minimized by clicking the app's icon in the launcher. I have to go to the top-left of the screen and click the "_" button. I do know I can fix these issues by installing some configuration tool. But the thing is, if that's how it's meant to work, Canonical/Ubuntu would have designed it that way. But they didn't. Why? w.r.t above points [1], [2]: [1] EDITED: So, does it mean, it's good to work without maximizing the windows? Because if I maximize the window, the app launcher hides. And I need to hover the mouse to the left of the screen, wait a bit (even if it's a sec or even less, I can still feel the lag), and then click on the next app icon in the launcher to switch to it. I do know, I can use Alt+TAB to switch, but I am not sure which window comes next. This, I feel, isn't productive. Also, this makes me feel, Ubuntu is designed for large screens (it's nice on my 1920x1080p screen), because I can have two windows side-by-side or something like that on a large screen. This is not possible on smaller screens. [2]- Being able to minimize an application's window by clicking on its icon in the launcher (just like it works on Windows & probably elsewhere) would have been great, rather than having to go to the top-left and clicking the _ (minimize) button which brings up the app launcher itself (from hiding) most of the time. It's too tiring to have these small issues in the UI. I really would like to know how you are coping with these issues the way they are?

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• Strategy to use two different measurement systems in software

  - by Dennis

  I have an application that needs to accept and output values in both US Custom Units and Metric system. Right now the conversion and input and output is a mess. You can only enter in US system, but you can choose the output to be US or Metric, and the code to do the conversions is everywhere. So I want to organize this and put together some simple rules. So I came up with this: Rules user can enter values in either US or Metric, and User Interface will take care of marking this properly All units internally will be stored as US, since the majority of the system already has most of the data stored like that and depends on this. It shouldn't matter I suppose as long as you don't mix unit. All output will be in US or Metric, depending on user selection/choice/preference. In theory this sounds great and seems like a solution. However, one little problem I came across is this: There is some data stored in code or in the database that already returns data like this: 4 x 13/16" screws, which means "four times screws". I need the to be in either US or Metric. Where exactly do I put the conversion code for doing the conversion for this unit? The above already mixing presentation and data, but the data for the field I need to populate is that whole string. I can certainly split it up into the number 4, the 13/16", and the " x " and the " screws", but the question remains... where do I put the conversion code? Different Locations for Conversion Routines 1) Right now the string is in a class where it's produced. I can put conversion code right into that class and it may be a good solution. Except then, I want to be consistent so I will be putting conversion procedures everywhere in the code at-data-source, or right after reading it from the database. The problem though is I think that my code will have to deal with two systems, all throughout the codebase after this, should I do this. 2) According to the rules, my idea was to put it in the view script, aka last change to modify it before it is shown to the user. And it may be the right thing to do, but then it strikes me it may not always be the best solution. (First, it complicates the view script a tad, second, I need to do more work on the data side to split things up more, or do extra parsing, such as in my case above). 3) Another solution is to do this somewhere in the data prep step before the view, aka somewhere in the middle, before the view, but after the data-source. This strikes me as messy and that could be the reason why my codebase is in such a mess right now. It seems that there is no best solution. What do I do?

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• Motivating yourself to actually write the code after you've designed something

  - by dpb

  Does it happen only to me or is this familiar to you too? It's like this: You have to create something; a module, a feature, an entire application... whatever. It is something interesting that you have never done before, it is challenging. So you start to think how you are going to do it. You draw some sketches. You write some prototypes to test your ideas. You are putting different pieces together to get the complete view. You finally end up with a design that you like, something that is simple, clear to everybody, easy maintainable... you name it. You covered every base, you thought of everything. You know that you are going to have this class and that file and that database schema. Configure this here, adapt this other thingy there etc. But now, after everything is settled, you have to sit down and actually write the code for it. And is not challenging anymore.... Been there, done that! Writing the code now is just "formalities" and makes it look like re-iterating what you've just finished. At my previous job I sometimes got away with it because someone else did the coding based on my specifications, but at my new gig I'm in charge of the entire process so I have to do this too ('cause I get payed to do it). But I have a pet project I'm working on at home, after work and there is just me and no one is paying me to do it. I do the creative work and then when time comes to write it down I just don't feel like it (lets browse the web a little, see what's new on P.SE, on SO etc). I just want to move to the next challenging thing, and then to the next, and the next... Does this happen to you too? How do you deal with it? How do you convince yourself to go in and write the freaking code? I'll take any answer.

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• Collision in PyGame for spinning rectangular object.touching circles

  - by OverAchiever

  I'm creating a variation of Pong. One of the differences is that I use a rectangular structure as the object which is being bounced around, and I use circles as paddles. So far, all the collision handling I've worked with was using simple math (I wasn't using the collision "feature" in PyGame). The game is contained within a 2-dimensional continuous space. The idea is that the rectangular structure will spin at different speed depending on how far from the center you touch it with the circle. Also, any extremity of the rectangular structure should be able to touch any extremity of the circle. So I need to keep track of where it has been touched on both the circle and the rectangle to figure out the direction it will be bounced to. I intend to have basically 8 possible directions (Up, down, left, right and the half points between each one of those). I can work out the calculation of how the objected will be dislocated once I get the direction it will be dislocated to based on where it has been touch. I also need to keep track of where it has been touched to decide if the rectangular structure will spin clockwise or counter-clockwise after it collided. Before I started coding, I read the resources available at the PyGame website on the collision class they have (And its respective functions). I tried to work out the logic of what I was trying to achieve based on those resources and how the game will function. The only thing I could figure out that I could do was to make each one of these objects as a group of rectangular objects, and depending on which rectangle was touched the other would behave accordingly and give the illusion it is a single object. However, not only I don't know if this will work, but I also don't know if it is gonna look convincing based on how PyGame redraws the objects. Is there a way I can use PyGame to handle these collision detections by still having a single object? Can I figure out the point of collision on both objects using functions within PyGame precisely enough to achieve what I'm looking for? P.s: I hope the question was specific and clear enough. I apologize if there were any grammar mistakes, English is not my native language.

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• Need help on a problemset in a programming contest

  - by topher

  I've attended a local programming contest on my country. The name of the contest is "ACM-ICPC Indonesia National Contest 2013". The contest has ended on 2013-10-13 15:00:00 (GMT +7) and I am still curious about one of the problems. You can find the original version of the problem here. Brief Problem Explanation: There are a set of "jobs" (tasks) that should be performed on several "servers" (computers). Each job should be executed strictly from start time Si to end time Ei Each server can only perform one task at a time. (The complicated thing goes here) It takes some time for a server to switch from one job to another. If a server finishes job Jx, then to start job Jy it will need an intermission time Tx,y after job Jx completes. This is the time required by the server to clean up job Jx and load job Jy. In other word, job Jy can be run after job Jx if and only if Ex + Tx,y = Sy. The problem is to compute the minimum number of servers needed to do all jobs. Example: For example, let there be 3 jobs S(1) = 3 and E(1) = 6 S(2) = 10 and E(2) = 15 S(3) = 16 and E(3) = 20 T(1,2) = 2, T(1,3) = 5 T(2,1) = 0, T(2,3) = 3 T(3,1) = 0, T(3,2) = 0 In this example, we need 2 servers: Server 1: J(1), J(2) Server 2: J(3) Sample Input: Short explanation: The first 3 is the number of test cases, following by number of jobs (the second 3 means that there are 3 jobs for case 1), then followed by Ei and Si, then the T matrix (sized equal with number of jobs). 3 3 3 6 10 15 16 20 0 2 5 0 0 3 0 0 0 4 8 10 4 7 12 15 1 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 8 10 4 7 12 15 1 4 0 50 50 50 50 0 50 50 50 50 0 50 50 50 50 0 Sample Output: Case #1: 2 Case #2: 1 Case #3: 4 Personal Comments: The time required can be represented as a graph matrix, so I'm supposing this as a directed acyclic graph problem. Methods I tried so far is brute force and greedy, but got Wrong Answer. (Unfortunately I don't have my code anymore) Could probably solved by dynamic programming too, but I'm not sure. I really have no clear idea on how to solve this problem. So a simple hint or insight will be very helpful to me.

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• Simple rendering produces minor stutter

  - by Ben

  For some reason, this game loop renders the movement of a simple rectangle with no stuttering. double currTime; double prevTime = System.nanoTime() / NANO_TO_SEC; double FPSTIMER = System.nanoTime(); double maxTimeDiff = 100.0 / 1000.0; double delta = 1.0 / 60.0; int processes = 0, frames = 0; while(true){ currTime = System.nanoTime() / NANO_TO_SEC; if(currTime - prevTime > maxTimeDiff) prevTime = currTime; if(currTime >= prevTime){ process(); processes++; prevTime += delta; if(currTime < prevTime){ render(); frames++; } } else{ try{ Thread.sleep((long) (1000 * (prevTime - currTime))); } catch(Exception e){} } if(System.nanoTime() - FPSTIMER > 1000000000.0){ System.out.println("Process: " + (1000 / processes) + "ms FPS: " + (1000 / frames) + "ms"); processes = frames = 0; FPSTIMER += 1000000000.0; } } But for this game loop, I get really minor stuttering where the movement does not look smooth. long prevTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); long prevRenderTime = 0; long currRenderTime = 0; long delta = 0; long msPerTick = 1000 / 60; int frames = 0; int ticks = 0; double FPSTIMER = System.currentTimeMillis(); while (true){ long currTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); delta += (currTime - prevTime) / msPerTick; prevTime = currTime; while (delta >= 1){ ticks++; process(); delta -= 1; } prevRenderTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); render(); frames++; currRenderTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); try{ Thread.sleep((long) ((1000 / FPS) - (currRenderTime - prevRenderTime))); } catch(Exception e){} if(System.currentTimeMillis() - FPSTIMER > 1000.0){ System.out.println("Process: " + (1000.0 / ticks) + "ms FPS: " + (1000.0 / frames) + "ms"); ticks = frames = 0; FPSTIMER += 1000.0; } Is there any critical difference that I'm missing here? The one thing I noticed is that if I uncap the fps for the second game loop, the stuttering goes away. It doesn't make sense to me. Also, the second game loop came from Notch's Minicraft code with just my thread sleeping code added in.

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• Dadaism and Agility

  - by alexhildyard

  We all have our little bugbears, and something that has given me particular pause over the years is the place of Agility in the software development life cycle. While I have seen it used successfully on both small and Enterprise-level projects, I have also seen many instances in which long-standing technical debt has also originated under its watch. Ironically the problem in such cases seems to me not that the practitioners in question have failed to follow due process (Test, Develop, Refactor -- a common "what" of Agile), but basically that they have missed the point (the "why" of Agile). It's probably a sign of my age that I'm much more interested in the "why" than the "what", since I feel that the latter falls out naturally from the former, but that this is not a reciprocal relationship.Consider Dadaism, precursor to the Surrealist movement in the early part of the twentieth century. Anyone could stand up and proclaim he or she was Dada; anyone could write cut-ups, or pull words out a hat, or produce gibberish on duelling typewriters under the inspiration of Dada. And all that took place at such performances was a manifestation of Dada, and all the artefacts that resulted were also Dada. Hence one commentator's engimatic observation that 'when one speaks of Dada, then one speaks of Dada. But when one does not speak of Dada, one still speaks of Dada.'What is Dada? Literally, Dada is what you say it is. But that's also missing the point. Dada is about erecting a framework within which utterances like this are valid; Dada is about preparing a stage for itself. Dadaism exemplifies the purity of a process-driven ideology -- in fact an ideology that is almost pure process, with nothing extraneous in the way of formal method, and while perhaps Agile delivery should not embrace the liberties of Dadaism too literally, some of the similarities nevertheless are salutary.Agile -- like Dada -- is an attitude; it is about *being* agile; it is not really about doing a specific set of things that are somehow *part* of being Agile. It is an abstract base rather than an implementation, a characteristic rather than a factor. It is the pragmatic response to the need for change in the face of partial information, ephemeral requirements and a healthy dose of systematic uncertainty. In practice this will usually mean repeatedly making the smallest useful changes to a system, recognising that systems evolve, and that all change carries risk. It will usually mean that instead of investing effort in future-proofing a system against a known technology roadmap, one instead invests one's energies in the daily repetition and incremental development of processes best designed to accommodate change quickly. But though it may mean these things in practice, it isn't actually *about* either of these things; it's about the mindset, the attitude that conceives of such responses as sensible solutions given the larger and ultimately unclassifiable thing that constitutes the development lifecycle of a specific project.

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• How should I structure my turn based engine to allow flexibility for players/AI and observation?

  - by Reefpirate

  I've just started making a Turn Based Strategy engine in GameMaker's GML language... And I was cruising along nicely until it came time to handle the turn cycle, and determining who is controlling what player, and also how to handle the camera and what is displayed on screen. Here's an outline of the main switch happening in my main game loop at the moment: switch (GameState) { case BEGIN_TURN: // Start of turn operations/routines break; case MID_TURN: switch (PControlledBy[Turn]) { case HUMAN: switch (MidTurnState) { case MT_SELECT: // No units selected, 'idle' UI state break; case MT_MOVE: // Unit selected and attempting to move break; case MT_ATTACK: break; } break; case COMPUTER: // AI ROUTINES GO HERE break; case OBSERVER: // OBSERVER ROUTINES GO HERE break; } break; case END_TURN: // End of turn routines/operations, and move Turn to next player break; } Now, I can see a couple of problems with this set-up already... But I don't have any idea how to go about making it 'right'. Turn is a global variable that stores which player's turn it is, and the BEGIN_TURN and END_TURN states make perfect sense to me... But the MID_TURN state is baffling me because of the things I want to happen here: If there are players controlled by humans, I want the AI to do it's thing on its turn here, but I want to be able to have the camera follow the AI as it makes moves in the human player's vision. If there are no human controlled player's, I'd like to be able to watch two or more AI's battle it out on the map with god-like 'observer' vision. So basically I'm wondering if there are any resources for how to structure a Turn Based Strategy engine? I've found lots of writing about pathfinding and AI, and those are all great... But when it comes to handling the turn structure and the game states I am having trouble finding any resources at all. How should the states be divided to allow flexibility between the players and the controllers (HUMAN, COMPUTER, OBSERVER)? Also, maybe if I'm on the right track I just need some reassurance before I lay down another few hundred lines of code...

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• How to keep a data structure synchronized over a network?

  - by David Gouveia

  Context In the game I'm working on (a sort of a point and click graphic adventure), pretty much everything that happens in the game world is controlled by an action manager that is structured a bit like: So for instance if the result of examining an object should make the character say hello, walk a bit and then sit down, I simply spawn the following code: var actionGroup = actionManager.CreateGroup(); actionGroup.Add(new TalkAction("Guybrush", "Hello there!"); actionGroup.Add(new WalkAction("Guybrush", new Vector2(300, 300)); actionGroup.Add(new SetAnimationAction("Guybrush", "Sit")); This creates a new action group (an entire line in the image above) and adds it to the manager. All of the groups are executed in parallel, but actions within each group are chained together so that the second one only starts after the first one finishes. When the last action in a group finishes, the group is destroyed. Problem Now I need to replicate this information across a network, so that in a multiplayer session, all players see the same thing. Serializing the individual actions is not the problem. But I'm an absolute beginner when it comes to networking and I have a few questions. I think for the sake of simplicity in this discussion we can abstract the action manager component to being simply: var actionManager = new List<List<string>>(); How should I proceed to keep the contents of the above data structure syncronized between all players? Besides the core question, I'm also having a few other concerns related to it (i.e. all possible implications of the same problem above): If I use a server/client architecture (with one of the players acting as both a server and a client), and one of the clients has spawned a group of actions, should he add them directly to the manager, or only send a request to the server, which in turn will order every client to add that group? What about packet losses and the like? The game is deterministic, but I'm thinking that any discrepancy in the sequence of actions executed in a client could lead to inconsistent states of the world. How do I safeguard against that sort of problem? What if I add too many actions at once, won't that cause problems for the connection? Any way to alleviate that?

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• Wrapping REST based Web Service

  - by PaulPerry

  I am designing a system that will be running online under Microsoft Windows Azure. One component is a REST based web service which will really be a wrapper (using proxy pattern) which calls the REST web services of a business partner, which has to do with BLOB storage (note: we are not using azure storage). The majority of the functionality will be taking a request, calling our partner web service, receiving the request and then passing that back to the client. There are a number of reasons for doing this, but one of the big ones is that we are going to support three clients: our desktop application (win and mac), mobile apps (iOS), and a web front end. Having a single API which we then send to our partner protects us if that partner ever changes. I want our service to support both JSON and XML for the data transfer format, JSON for web and probably XML for the desktop and mobile (we already have an XML parser in those products). Our partner also supports both of these formats. I was planning on using ASP.NET MVC 4 with the Web API. As I design this, the thing that concerns me is the static type checking of C#. What if the partner adds or removes elements from the data? We can probably defensively code for that, but I still feel some concern. Also, we have to do a fair amount of tedious coding, to setup our API and then to turn around and call our partner’s API. There probably is not much choice on it though. But, in the back of my mind I wonder if maybe a more dynamic language would be a better choice. I want to reach out and see if anybody has had to do this before, what technology solutions they have used to (I am not attached to this one, these days Azure can host other technologies), and if anybody who has done something like this can point out any issues that came up. Thanks! Researching the issue seems to only find solutions which focus on connecting a SOAP web service over a proxy server, and not what I am referring to here. Note: Cross posted (by suggestion) from http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11906802/wrapping-rest-based-web-service Thank you!

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• How do you automate a SharePoint 2010 deployment?

  - by Enrique Lima

  In the last couple of months SharePoint traffic (consulting, training and speaking) has picked up.  And with that also the requests for deployments.  There are good, great, bad and really bad things around this. But that is for another topic.  However part of the good and great has been the fact of organizations wanting to do a proof of concept deployment (even when WSS or MOSS has been deployed). We can go through a session (Microsoft has the SDPS concept, SharePoint Deployment Planning Services) of discovering what the customer wants to achieve from their investment in the platform and then also proceed to model the solution that would fit their needs.  But it should not stop there.  The next step should be a POC (as many have requested) to test out. Now, on to the meat of this post.  How do I deploy?  While it is a good process to watch and see all of it take place, not many have the time to sit through that.  Even more so, when that has been part of the description of deploying the platform in the sessions mentioned above. I will, though, break it into a deployment for development purposes and a deployment of a farm. Two tools (or scripts) for those two different types of deployment. First, let me address the development environment.  Around the last week in October, Chris Johnson (SharePoint Product Team) announced a SharePoint Easy Setup for Developers.  The kit itself will assist you in installing SharePoint Server (in standalone mode), the tools that go around Visual Studio, Expression Studio and the Office 2010 tools. Here is the link to Chris’ post: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/cjohnson/archive/2010/10/28/announcing-sharepoint-easy-setup-for-developers.aspx The other scenario is the use of a script in assisting you through the deployment of a farm. Now, this is not to override planning.  It should highlight the need for planning even more.  How?  Having your service accounts planned, the structure of the sites and the scale of your deployment.  Enter AutoSPInstaller.  This is a CodePlex project, and the intent behind this is not only to automate the installation but to give some meaning and get some sense out of what goes on during a SharePoint deployment. How?  Take for example the creation of the databases, when we do the initial OOB deployment by using the wizard, more times than not, we leave the names as they are.  How is that a “bad thing”?  Let’s make it a better practice to rename those Databases, and have them take on a name that is not “GUID-ized”. Having a better naming convention will not hurt, on the other hand will allow for consistency. Here is the link to AutoSPInstaller’s site on CodePlex: http://autospinstaller.codeplex.com/

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• How do I maintain a really poorly written code base?

  - by onlineapplab.com

  Recently I got hired to work on existing web application because of NDA I'm not at liberty to disclose any details but this application is working online in sort of a beta testing stage before official launch. We have a few hundred users right now but this number is supposed to significantly increase after official launch. The application is written in PHP (but it is irrelevant to my question) and is running on a dual xeon processor standalone server with severe performance problems. I have seen a lot of bad PHP code but this really sets new standards, especially knowing how much time and money was invested in developing it. it is as badly coded as possible there is PHP, HTML, SQL mixed together and code is repeated whenever it is necessary (especially SQL queries). there are not any functions used, not mentioning any OOP there are four versions of the app (desktop, iPhone, Android + other mobile) each version has pretty much the same functionality but was created by copying the whole code base, so now there are some differences between each version and it is really hard to maintain the database is really badly designed, which is causing severe performance problems also for fixing some errors in PHP code there is a lot of database triggers used which are updating data on SELECT and on INSERT so any testing is a nightmare Basically, any sin of a bad programming you can imagine is there for example it is not only possible to use SQL injections in literally every place but you can log into app if you use a login which doesn't exist and an empty password. The team which created this app is not working on it any more and there is an outsourced team which suggested that there are some problems but was never willing to deal with the elephant in the room partially because they've got a very comfortable contract and partially due to lack of skills (just my opinion). My job was supposed to be fixing some performance problems and extending existing functionality but first thing I was asked to do was a review of the existing code base. I've made my review and it was quite a shock for the management but my conclusions were after some time finally confirmed by other programmers. Management made it clear that it is not possible to start rewriting this app from scratch (which in my opinion should be done). We have to maintain its operable state and at the same time fix performance errors and extend the functionality. My question is, as I don't want just to patch the existing code, how to transform this into properly written app while keeping the existing code working at the same time? My plan is: Unify four existing versions into common code base (fixing only most obvious errors). Redesign db and use triggers to populate it with data (so data will be maintained in two formats at the same time) All new functionality will be written as separate project. Step by step transfer existing functionality into the new project After some time everything will be in the new project Some explanation about #2, right now it is practically impossible to make any updates in existing db any change requires reviewing whole code and making changes in many places. Is such plan feasible at all? Another solution is to walk away and leave the headache to someone else.

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• What to do when opensource project starts to tear apart? (or a manager tries to write code and than shouts at the team)

  - by Kabumbus

  Imagine there is an open source cross-platform project on Google code. It has lots of revisions (1000). It concentrates in itself lots technological stuff - rare stuff - it mixes top tech. It contains server, and more than one client. The project was created by a well-connected team of developers (friends) and a manager that was sponsoring project at its start up during its first few months (project now is more than a year old-sponsoring oss project is a big good deal- also gave the idea of project to developers). The project was growing in complexity and effort reqiered to continue development. Once upon a time a manager - team leader started trying to write code (he was a programmer in some other projects - not the best, but he felt like he was one). He started because one of the developers suggested an idea at the team meeting and he felt he just needed to do it on his own. He failed, and he told the dev team about it. The dev team did what he failed to do in a few days. After that, the manager feels that team codes with out him perfectly and gets the job done in short time. He felt sorry and lost and he started to crash like an old bad PC. Firstly, he started to scream (in forms of messages not in voice) he tried to tell developers that what they were doing was a bad, not-needed thing - developers kindly told him that his "beginnings" were not compilable while dev team product worked as needed. He told the developers that all work they do should be firstly discussed with him. Here is the part where we need to mention that all team members are "project owners" and logically have equal rights. The team leader suggested to the developers these options: change their dev process to go through him, or be moved from project owners to contributers. So what are our options as developers? What arguments we can provide to the team leader/manager for him to calm down? Is it possible to save the project or is it better to fork out now? An important issue is that lately we had no active ticket system, and I personally think that this was the reason the mess appeared. So... any ideas?

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• Generate MERGE statements from a table

  - by Bill Graziano

  We have a requirement to build a test environment where certain tables get reset from production every night.  These are mainly lookup tables.  I played around with all kinds of fancy solutions and finally settled on a series of MERGE statements.  And being lazy I didn’t want to write them myself.  The stored procedure below will generate a MERGE statement for the table you pass it.  If you have identity values it populates those properly.  You need to have primary keys on the table for the joins to be generated properly.  The only thing hard coded is the source database.  You’ll need to update that for your environment.  We actually used a linked server in our situation. CREATE PROC dba_GenerateMergeStatement (@table NVARCHAR(128) )ASset nocount on; declare @return int;PRINT '-- ' + @table + ' -------------------------------------------------------------'--PRINT 'SET NOCOUNT ON;--'-- Set the identity insert on for tables with identitiesselect @return = objectproperty(object_id(@table), 'TableHasIdentity')if @return = 1 PRINT 'SET IDENTITY_INSERT [dbo].[' + @table + '] ON; 'declare @sql varchar(max) = ''declare @list varchar(max) = '';SELECT @list = @list + [name] +', 'from sys.columnswhere object_id = object_id(@table)SELECT @list = @list + [name] +', 'from sys.columnswhere object_id = object_id(@table)SELECT @list = @list + 's.' + [name] +', 'from sys.columnswhere object_id = object_id(@table)-- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------PRINT 'MERGE [dbo].[' + @table + '] AS t'PRINT 'USING (SELECT * FROM [source_database].[dbo].[' + @table + ']) as s'-- Get the join columns ----------------------------------------------------------SET @list = ''select @list = @list + 't.[' + c.COLUMN_NAME + '] = s.[' + c.COLUMN_NAME + '] AND 'from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLE_CONSTRAINTS pk , INFORMATION_SCHEMA.KEY_COLUMN_USAGE cwhere pk.TABLE_NAME = @tableand CONSTRAINT_TYPE = 'PRIMARY KEY'and c.TABLE_NAME = pk.TABLE_NAMEand c.CONSTRAINT_NAME = pk.CONSTRAINT_NAMESELECT @list = LEFT(@list, LEN(@list) -3)PRINT 'ON ( ' + @list + ')'-- WHEN MATCHED ------------------------------------------------------------------PRINT 'WHEN MATCHED THEN UPDATE SET'SELECT @list = '';SELECT @list = @list + ' [' + [name] + '] = s.[' + [name] +'],'from sys.columnswhere object_id = object_id(@table)-- don't update primary keysand [name] NOT IN (SELECT [column_name] from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLE_CONSTRAINTS pk , INFORMATION_SCHEMA.KEY_COLUMN_USAGE c where pk.TABLE_NAME = @table and CONSTRAINT_TYPE = 'PRIMARY KEY' and c.TABLE_NAME = pk.TABLE_NAME and c.CONSTRAINT_NAME = pk.CONSTRAINT_NAME)-- and don't update identity columnsand columnproperty(object_id(@table), [name], 'IsIdentity ') = 0 --print @list PRINT left(@list, len(@list) -3 )-- WHEN NOT MATCHED BY TARGET ------------------------------------------------PRINT ' WHEN NOT MATCHED BY TARGET THEN';-- Get the insert listSET @list = ''SELECT @list = @list + '[' + [name] +'], 'from sys.columnswhere object_id = object_id(@table)SELECT @list = LEFT(@list, LEN(@list) - 1)PRINT ' INSERT(' + @list + ')'-- get the values listSET @list = ''SELECT @list = @list + 's.[' +[name] +'], 'from sys.columnswhere object_id = object_id(@table)SELECT @list = LEFT(@list, LEN(@list) - 1)PRINT ' VALUES(' + @list + ')'-- WHEN NOT MATCHED BY SOURCEprint 'WHEN NOT MATCHED BY SOURCE THEN DELETE; 'PRINT ''PRINT 'PRINT ''' + @table + ': '' + CAST(@@ROWCOUNT AS VARCHAR(100));';PRINT ''-- Set the identity insert OFF for tables with identitiesselect @return = objectproperty(object_id(@table), 'TableHasIdentity')if @return = 1 PRINT 'SET IDENTITY_INSERT [dbo].[' + @table + '] OFF; 'PRINT ''PRINT 'GO'PRINT '';

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• SQL Azure Security: DoS Part II

  - by Herve Roggero

  Ah!  When you shoot yourself in the foot... a few times... it hurts! That's what I did on Sunday, to learn more about the behavior of the SQL Azure Denial Of Service prevention feature. This article is a short follow up to my last post on this feature. In this post, I will outline some of the lessons learned that were the result of testing the behavior of SQL Azure from two machines. From the standpoint of SQL Azure, they look like one machine since they are behind a NAT. All logins affected The first thing to note is that all the logins are affected. If you lock yourself out to a specific database, none of the logins will work on that database. In fact the database size becomes "--" in the SQL Azure Portal.   Less than 100 sessions I was able to see 50+ sessions being made in SQL Azure (by looking at sys.dm_exec_sessions) before being locked out. The the DoS feature appears to be triggered in part by the number of open sessions. I could not determine if the lockout is triggered by the speed at which connection requests are made however.   Other Databases Unaffected This was interesting... the DoS feature works at the database level. Other databases were available for me to use.   Just Wait Initially I thought that going through SQL Azure and connecting from there would reset the database and allow me to connect again. Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be the case. You will have to wait. And the more you lock yourself out, the more you will have to wait... The first time the database became available again within 30 seconds or so; the second time within 2-3 minutes and the third time... within 2-3 hours...   Successful Logins The DoS feature appears to engage only for valid logins. If you have a login failure, it doesn't seem to count. I ran a test with over 100 login failures without being locked.

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• Ubuntu 11.10 crashes all browsers often

  - by murat

  I have been using ubuntu 11.10 for 1 year,today it made me surprised. When I open google chrome it just closes itself. Firstly i thought that it is just for chrome and tried Firefox : It also closes itself and one thing more : I tried desktop programs such as image viewer it also closes itself.I restarted it but there is no changing.What can do this ? is it virus or another system problem ? I did not have any problem like this until today.. $ google-chrome (google-chrome:7064): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "pixmap", (google-chrome:7064): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "pixmap", (google-chrome:7064): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "pixmap", (google-chrome:7064): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "pixmap", --2012-04-04 19:33:14-- https://clients2.google.com/cr/report Resolving clients2.google.com... 173.194.70.100, 173.194.70.101, 173.194.70.102, ... Connecting to clients2.google.com|173.194.70.100|:443... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: unspecified [text/html] 2012-04-04 19:33:19 (888 KB/s) - `/dev/fd/3' saved [16] (exe:7166): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "pixmap", (exe:7166): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "pixmap", (exe:7166): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "pixmap", (exe:7166): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "pixmap", Moonlight: 3.99.0.3 Moonlight: Attempting to load libmoonloaderxpi (exe:7201): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "pixmap", (exe:7201): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "pixmap", (exe:7201): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "pixmap", (exe:7201): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "pixmap", Failed to open VDPAU backend libvdpau_nvidia.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Segmentation fault After trying to install libvdpau1 error is changed : google-chrome --2012-04-04 20:05:03-- https://clients2.google.com/cr/report Resolving clients2.google.com... 173.194.70.113, 173.194.70.138, 173.194.70.139, ... Connecting to clients2.google.com|173.194.70.113|:443... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... Moonlight: 3.99.0.3 Moonlight: Attempting to load libmoonloaderxpi 200 OK Length: unspecified [text/html] Saving to: `/dev/fd/3' [<=> ] 0 --.-K/s f4c55117d1b4656e [ <= ] 16 --.-K/s in 0s 2012-04-04 20:05:12 (337 KB/s) - `/dev/fd/3' saved [16] Segmentation fault

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• What is SOA ?

  - by llaszews

  First, let’s mention what SOA is not: • SOA is not the same thing as web services. Web Services implies the use of standard such as Java/JAX-RPC, .NET or REST. Web Services also implies the use of a WSDL, SOAP, and/or J2EE Connector Architecture (J2EE CA) and HTTP. SOA architectures can be implemented using J2EE CA, XML file transfer or Remote Procedural Call (RPC) over File Transfer Protocol (FTP), TCP/IP, Remote Method Invocation (RMI) or other protocols. In other words, Web Services are a very specific set of technologies. SOA is a concept and can be implemented in many different ways. Some very rudimentary, such as transfering flat files between applications. • SOA will not solve all of your problems. It will make your business more agile, increase business visibility, reduce integration costs and provide better reuse. However, if you don’t need help in these area or expect SOA to cure all of your IT problems, you are looking in the wrong place. • The concepts behind SOA are not new, but SOA is also not mature. SOA as it stands today has really only been around for 5 years. The concepts of standards based protocol handlers, predefined communication schemas and remote method invocation have been around for decades. So, what is SOA? SOA is an architectural blueprint, a way of developing applications, and a set of best practices. SOA is not an ‘out of the box’ solution you buy, install and then have up and running in a matter of months. SOA is a journey to a better way of doing business and the technology architecture to support this better way of doing business. SOA is also a broader set of technologies including more then just web services. Techologies like an Enterpirse Service Bus (ESB), Business Processs Execution Language (BPEL), message queues and Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) all are part of a SOA architecture. So, what is SOA? SOA is an architectural blueprint, a way of developing applications, and a set of best practices. SOA is not an ‘out of the box’ solution you buy, install and then have up and running in a matter of months. SOA is a journey to a better way of doing business and the technology architecture to support this better way of doing business. SOA is also a broader set of technologies including more then just web services. Techologies like an Enterpirse Service Bus (ESB), Business Processs Execution Language (BPEL), message queues and Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) all are part of a SOA architecture. Read more here: Oracle Modernization Solutions

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• root issues in softwarecenter, synaptic and update manager

  - by user188977

  i have a notebook samsung ativ 2 and ubuntu 12.04 precise, cinnamon desktop. after logging in today my update manager, synaptic and ubuntu softwarecenter stopped working. synaptic i can only launch from terminal the others from panel.when choosing to update, nothing happens. same thing when trying to install programms from syn. or softw.center.when launching softwarec. from terminal i get: marcus@ddddddddd:~$ software-center 2013-11-10 22:30:46,206 - softwarecenter.ui.gtk3.app - INFO - setting up proxy 'None' 2013-11-10 22:30:46,217 - softwarecenter.db.database - INFO - open() database: path=None use_axi=True use_agent=True (software-center:4772): Gtk-WARNING **: Theme parsing error: softwarecenter.css:34:20: Not using units is deprecated. Assuming 'px'. (software-center:4772): Gtk-WARNING **: Theme parsing error: softwarecenter.css:34:22: Not using units is deprecated. Assuming 'px'. (software-center:4772): Gtk-WARNING **: Theme parsing error: softwarecenter.css:56:20: Not using units is deprecated. Assuming 'px'. (software-center:4772): Gtk-WARNING **: Theme parsing error: softwarecenter.css:56:22: Not using units is deprecated. Assuming 'px'. (software-center:4772): Gtk-WARNING **: Theme parsing error: softwarecenter.css:60:20: Not using units is deprecated. Assuming 'px'. (software-center:4772): Gtk-WARNING **: Theme parsing error: softwarecenter.css:60:22: Not using units is deprecated. Assuming 'px'. 2013-11-10 22:30:46,977 - softwarecenter.backend.reviews - WARNING - Could not get usefulness from server, no username in config file 2013-11-10 22:30:47,320 - softwarecenter.ui.gtk3.app - INFO - show_available_packages: search_text is '', app is None. 2013-11-10 22:30:48,057 - softwarecenter.db.pkginfo_impl.aptcache - INFO - aptcache.open() 2013-11-10 22:31:00,646 - softwarecenter.fixme - WARNING - logs to the root logger: '('/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/utils.py', 201, 'get_title_from_html')' 2013-11-10 22:31:00,645 - root - WARNING - failed to parse: '<div style="background-color: #161513; width:1680px; height:200px;">  <div style="background: url('/site_media/exhibits/2013/09/AAMFP_Leaderboard_700x200_1.jpg') top left no-repeat; width:700px; height:200px;"></div> </div>' ('ascii' codec can't encode character u'\xa0' in position 70: ordinal not in range(128)) 2013-11-10 22:31:02,268 - softwarecenter.db.update - INFO - skipping region restricted app: 'Comentarios Web' (not whitelisted) 2013-11-10 22:31:02,769 - softwarecenter.db.update - INFO - skipping region restricted app: 'reEarCandy' (not whitelisted) 2013-11-10 22:31:04,821 - softwarecenter.db.update - INFO - skipping region restricted app: 'Flaggame' (not whitelisted) 2013-11-10 22:31:05,622 - softwarecenter.db.update - INFO - skipping region restricted app: 'Bulleti d'esquerra de Calonge i Sant Antoni ' (not whitelisted) 2013-11-10 22:31:08,352 - softwarecenter.ui.gtk3.app - INFO - software-center-agent finished with status 0 2013-11-10 22:31:08,353 - softwarecenter.db.database - INFO - reopen() database 2013-11-10 22:31:08,353 - softwarecenter.db.database - INFO - open() database: path=None use_axi=True use_agent=True 2013-11-10 22:33:32,319 - softwarecenter.backend - WARNING - _on_trans_error: org.freedesktop.PolicyKit.Error.Failed: ('system-bus-name', {'name': ':1.72'}): org.debian.apt.install-or-remove-packages 2013-11-10 22:36:01,818 - softwarecenter.backend - WARNING - daemon dies, ignoring: <AptTransaction object at 0x48e4b40 (aptdaemon+client+AptTransaction at 0x645aaa0)> exit-failed 2013-11-10 22:36:01,820 - softwarecenter.db.pkginfo_impl.aptcache - INFO - aptcache.open()

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• Multiplayer tile based movement synchronization

  - by Mars

  I have to synchronize the movement of multiple players over the Internet, and I'm trying to figure out the safest way to do that. The game is tile based, you can only move in 4 directions, and every move moves the sprite 32px (over time of course). Now, if I would simply send this move action to the server, which would broadcast it to all players, while the walk key is kept being pressed down, to keep walking, I have to take this next command, send it to the server, and to all clients, in time, or the movement won't be smooth anymore. I saw this in other games, and it can get ugly pretty quick, even without lag. So I'm wondering if this is even a viable option. This seems like a very good method for single player though, since it's easy, straight forward (, just take the next movement action in time and add it to a list), and you can easily add mouse movement (clicking on some tile), to add a path to a queue, that's walked along. The other thing that came to my mind was sending the information that someone started moving in some direction, and again once he stopped or changed the direction, together with the position, so that the sprite will appear at the correct position, or rather so that the position can be fixed if it's wrong. This should (hopefully) only make problems if someone really is lagging, in which case it's to be expected. For this to work out I'd need some kind of queue though, where incoming direction changes and stuff are saved, so the sprite knows where to go, after the current movement to the next tile is finished. This could actually work, but kinda sounds overcomplicated. Although it might be the only way to do this, without risk of stuttering. If a stop or direction change is received on the client side it's saved in a queue and the char keeps moving to the specified coordinates, before stopping or changing direction. If the new command comes in too late there'll be stuttering as well of course... I'm having a hard time deciding for a method, and I couldn't really find any examples for this yet. My main problem is keeping the tile movement smooth, which is why other topics regarding synchronization of pixel based movement aren't helping too much. What is the "standard" way to do this?

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• Eloqua Sales Awareness Training for Partners - London, November 28-29

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  We are pleased to invite you to the free of charge Oracle Eloqua Sales Awareness Training for Partners - London, November 28&29 - COME LEARN WHAT ALL THE BUZZ IS ABOUT! WHEN SALES & MARKETING BOND, REVENUE GROWS It’s not one thing that makes a company successful with marketing automation – it’s the combination of the best implementation, flexible long-term support and access to a community of marketing innovation that ensures you have the assistance you need every step of the way. Our customers choose Oracle|Eloqua because they know when sales and marketing work together, leads are called upon, quotas are crushed and revenues climb. Learn how Oracle|Eloqua can help you put marketing to work for you! COVERED IN THIS TRAINING Eloqua and the Customer Experience Strategy How Modern Marketing Works Introduction to Eloqua – Whiteboard POV Go To Market Playbook Competitive Landscape Integration Options Service Offerings With case studies, workshops and product demos to help you on your way to a new world of marketing expertise LOGISTICS If you are ready to join us on this journey, now’s the time to let us know! Tell us a little about your experience – complete this form to help us know you better (Please ignore if your firm has already completed) Complete this form to RSVP by Thursday, November 21, 2013. Find out more about the Oracle|Eloqua, join the Oracle Eloqua Marketing Cloud Service Knowledge Zone and keep up on all the news! QUESTIONS? Contact [email protected] Please note that similar events will take place in other cities (Brussels, Istanbul and more come) later in 2014. /* 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:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";}

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• SSH from external network refused

  - by wulfsdad

  I've installed open-ssh-server on my home computer(running Lubuntu 12.04.1) in order to connect to it from school. This is how I've set up the sshd_config file: # Package generated configuration file # See the sshd_config(5) manpage for details # What ports, IPs and protocols we listen for #Port 22 Port 2222 # Use these options to restrict which interfaces/protocols sshd will bind to #ListenAddress :: #ListenAddress 0.0.0.0 Protocol 2 # HostKeys for protocol version 2 HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key #Privilege Separation is turned on for security UsePrivilegeSeparation yes # Lifetime and size of ephemeral version 1 server key KeyRegenerationInterval 3600 ServerKeyBits 768 # Logging SyslogFacility AUTH #LogLevel INFO LogLevel VERBOSE # Authentication: LoginGraceTime 120 PermitRootLogin no StrictModes yes RSAAuthentication yes PubkeyAuthentication yes #AuthorizedKeysFile %h/.ssh/authorized_keys # Don't read the user's ~/.rhosts and ~/.shosts files IgnoreRhosts yes # For this to work you will also need host keys in /etc/ssh_known_hosts RhostsRSAAuthentication no # similar for protocol version 2 HostbasedAuthentication no # Uncomment if you don't trust ~/.ssh/known_hosts for RhostsRSAAuthentication #IgnoreUserKnownHosts yes # To enable empty passwords, change to yes (NOT RECOMMENDED) PermitEmptyPasswords no # Change to yes to enable challenge-response passwords (beware issues with # some PAM modules and threads) ChallengeResponseAuthentication no # Change to no to disable tunnelled clear text passwords #PasswordAuthentication yes # Kerberos options #KerberosAuthentication no #KerberosGetAFSToken no #KerberosOrLocalPasswd yes #KerberosTicketCleanup yes # GSSAPI options #GSSAPIAuthentication no #GSSAPICleanupCredentials yes X11Forwarding no X11DisplayOffset 10 PrintMotd no PrintLastLog yes TCPKeepAlive yes #UseLogin no #MaxStartups 10:30:60 #Banner /etc/issue.net Banner /etc/sshbanner.net # Allow client to pass locale environment variables AcceptEnv LANG LC_* Subsystem sftp /usr/lib/openssh/sftp-server # Set this to 'yes' to enable PAM authentication, account processing, # and session processing. If this is enabled, PAM authentication will # be allowed through the ChallengeResponseAuthentication and # PasswordAuthentication. Depending on your PAM configuration, # PAM authentication via ChallengeResponseAuthentication may bypass # the setting of "PermitRootLogin without-password". # If you just want the PAM account and session checks to run without # PAM authentication, then enable this but set PasswordAuthentication # and ChallengeResponseAuthentication to 'no'. UsePAM yes #specify which accounts can use SSH AllowUsers onlyme I've also configured my router's port forwarding table to include: LAN Ports: 2222-2222 Protocol: TCP LAN IP Address: "IP Address" displayed by viewing "connection information" from right-click menu of system tray Remote Ports[optional]: n/a Remote IP Address[optional]: n/a I've tried various other configurations as well, using primary and secondary dns, and also with specifying remote ports 2222-2222. I've also tried with TCP/UDP (actually two rules because my router requires separate rules for each protocol). With any router port forwarding configuration, I am able to log in with ssh -p 2222 -v localhost But, when I try to log in from school using ssh -p 2222 onlyme@IP_ADDRESS I get a "No route to host" message. Same thing when I use the "Broadcast Address" or "Default Route/Primary DNS". When I use the "subnet mask", ssh just hangs. However, when I use the "secondary DNS" I recieve a "Connection refused" message. :^( Someone please help me figure out how to make this work.

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• How to deal with malicious domain redirections?

  - by user359650

  It is possible for anybody to buy a domain name containing negative terms and point it to someone's website in order to damage their reputation. For instance someone could buy the domain child-pornography.com and point it to the address 64.34.119.12 which is the address behind stackoverflow.com and people navigating to the domain in question would end up visualizing content from StackExchange which would be detrimental to StackExchange's image. To illustrate this, I added the entry 64.34.119.12 child-pornography.com to my /etc/hosts file and tested. Here is what I obtained: I personally found this user experience terrible as someone could think that Stack Exchange are in favor of child pornography and awaiting support from the community to create a Q&A site about it. I tested with other websites and experienced other behaviors that I would categorize as follows: 1 - Useful 404 page (happens with stackoverflow.com): For me the worst way of handling this as the image of the targeted website is directly associated with the offending domain. The more useful the 404 page, the bigger the impression that the targeted website would be willing to help with child pornography. 2 - Redirection (happens with microsoft.com): For instance when accessing child-pornography.com you get redirected to www.microsoft.com. It isn't as bad as above as the offending domain name never appears alongside the targeted website's content, but still bad in my opinion as it gives the impression the targeted website bought the offending domain and redirected it to their website to get more traffic. 3 - Server error (happens with lemonde.fr): You get an error from the webserver which page doesn't contain any content that can be associated with the targeted website (e.g. default Apache 404 page, completely blank page). I believe that is good as the identify of the targeted website isn't revealed. Above are the various behaviors I experienced, but I also thought about a fourth way of dealing with this which is described below. 4 - Disclaimer page (haven't found any website implementing that technique): Display a message such as : "You ended here because someone bought and linked the child-pornography.com domain to our website. We do not own this domain and do not associate ourselves with it. This request has been logged by our servers and we will raise this issue with the competent authorities to have this domain taken down. If you want to access our website, please click here." The good thing about this method is that it can be implemented at application layer (good if you don't have control over web server which happens with some hosting solutions), allows you to protect yourself from any liability, and offer the visitor to be redirected to your own website. Which of the above options would you implement to deal with malicious domain linking (IMO only options 3 and 4 are worth considering) ?

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• What to answer to a customer who asks which one of two equivalent technologies must be used?

  - by MainMa

  As a freelancer, I am often asked by my customers what they must choose between similar elements, neither of which being better than another. Examples: “Do I need my e-commerce website be in PHP or ASP.NET?” “Do I need to host this ordinary web service in Cloud or use an ordinary hosting service?” “Which one is better for my new website: MySQL or Oracle?” etc. There is maybe at most 1% of cases where the choice is relevant, and there is a real, objective reason to use one over another, based on the precise metrics and studies. In all other cases, it doesn't matter at all. It is totally, completely irrelevant, either because there are no implications¹, or because those implications are too small to be taken in account², or, finally, because it's impossible to predict those implications³. If you know one thing and not another one, the answer to those questions is easy: “You can either write the application in C# or Java, both being probably equivalent in your case. Note that I'm a C# developer, so if you choose Java, I would not be able to work on your project and you would need to find another freelancer.” When you know both technologies, you can't answer that. In this case, how to explain to the customer that the question he asks is subject to flamewar and has no real consequences on his project? In other words, how to explain that you've chosen to use one technology rather than an equivalent one for the reasons related to human resources, without giving the impression to be unprofessional or to not care about the project? ¹ Example: Is MySQL better (worse?), performance-wise, compared to Oracle, for a personal website which will be accessed by, oh, let's be optimistic, two people per day? ² Example: for a given project, I was asked to asset if Windows Azure hosting would be cheaper than the hosting of the same application on a well-known ASP.NET hosting provider. The cost revealed to be exactly the same. ³ Example: your customer have an idea of a future application (the idea itself being extremely vague). There is no business plan, no requirements, nothing at all. Just an idea. You are asked if Java is better than C# for this app. What do you answer?

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• How to be successful at BDD Specifications Workshops?

  - by sigo

  Today we tried to introduce BDD in our software development process by having a specification workshop. For this workshop we had 2 developers, 1 tester and 1 business analyst. The workshop lasted 1h30 and by the end of it we managed to figure out some BDD scenarios for our new feature. We tried to focus on finding the scenarios that we could miss, and the difficult ones. At the end of the workshop some people were actually unhappy with the workshop. One developer felt he wasted his time as he was used to be given out the scenarios directly by the business analyst and review them with her. The business analyst didn't feel confident with our scenario coverage (Had a feeling that we could have missed out other important stuff) but more importantly felt that this workshop was also a waste of time as she could have figured out all these scenarios by herself and in a shorter period of time. So my question is how that kind of workshop can actually work. In the theory, given you have a new feature to develop, you put the tree 'amigos' (dev/tester/ba) in the same room so that they can collaborate together on writing the differents requirements for the new feature using examples. I can see all the benefits from that. Specially in term of knowledge sharing and common product/end goal/done vision. But in practice, we still think it is more cost effective to first have a BA to work on his own on the examples and only then to have the scenarios to be reviewed/reworked by the 3 'amigos'. By having the BA to work on his own, we actually feel more confident that we are less going to miss out stuff + we still get to review the scenarios afterward to double check. We don't think than simple brainstorming/deliberate discovery is actually enought to seriously cover all the requirement for a feature. The business analyst is actually the best person for that kind of stuff. The thing we just do is to review what she wrote and see if then we have a common understanding (which could then lead to rewrite some of her scenarios or add new ones she could have missed). This workshop lasted 1h30, and by the end of it, we didn't feel confident enought about wha we did...sure we could have spent more time on it but honestly most people get exhausted after 1h30 of brainstorming. So how can you get that to work effectively in practice ?

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