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  • dvcs - is "clone to branch" a common workflow?

    - by Tesserex
    I was recently discussing dvcs with a coworker, because our office is beginning to consider switching from TFS (we're a MS shop). In the process, I got very confused because he said that although he uses Mercurial, he hadn't heard of a "branch" or "checkout" command, and these terms were unfamiliar to him. After wondering how it was possible that he didn't know about them and explaining how dvcs branches work "in place" on your local files, he was quite confused. He explained that, similar to how TFS works, when he wants to create a "branch" he does it by cloning, so he has an entire copy of his repo. This seemed really strange to me, but the benefit, which I have to concede, is that you can look at or work on two branches simultaneously because the files are separate. In searching this site to see if this has been asked before I saw a comment that many online resources promote this "clone to branch" methodology, to the poster's dismay. Is this actually common in the dvcs community? And what are some of the pros and cons of going this way? I would never do it since I have no need to see multiple branches at once, switching is fast, and I don't need all the clones filling up my disk.

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  • Customer Experience Management for Retail 2.0 - part 2 / 2

    - by Sanjeev Sharma
    In the previous post, i discussed some of the key trends shaping up in the retail industry, their implications and the challenges facing retailers seeking to regain control of the buyer-seller relationship. Is Customer Experience Management the panacea for the ailing retailers who are now awakening to the power of the consumer? Quite honestly, customer acquisition, retention and satisfaction have been top of mind for retailers for quite some time now. The missing piece of this puzzle is bringing all those countless hours of strategy and planning to fruition. This is more of an execution gap than anything else. Although technology has made consumers more informed, more mobile and more social, customer experience is still largely defined by delivering on the following: Consistent experiences, whether shopping online or offline Personalize-able interaction ("mass market" sounds good as an internal strategy but not when you are a buyer!) Timely order fulfillment, if not pro-active notification of delays Below is a concept architecture for streamlining front-end, mid-office and back-end interfaces through shared process to achieve consistency and efficiency in managing the customer experience from order capture to order provisioning.

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  • Representing Mauritius in the 2013 Bench Games

    Only by chance I came across an interesting option for professionals and enthusiasts in IT, and quite honestly I can't even remember where I caught attention of Brainbench and their 2013 Bench Games event. But having access to 600+ free exams in a friendly international intellectual competition doesn't happen to be available every day. So, it was actually a no-brainer to sign up and browse through the various categories. Most interestingly, Brainbench is not only IT-related. They offer a vast variety of fields in their Test Center, like Languages and Communication, Office Skills, Management, Aptitude, etc., and it can be a little bit messy about how things are organised. Anyway, while browsing through their test offers I added a couple of exams to 'My Plan' which I would give a shot afterwards. Self-assessments Actually, I took the tests based on two major aspects: 'Fun Factor' and 'How good would I be in general'... Usually, you have to pay for any kind of exams and given this unique chance by Brainbench to simply train this kind of tests was already worth the time. Frankly speaking, the tests are very close to the ones you would be asked to do at Prometric or Pearson Vue, ie. Microsoft exams, etc. Go through a set of multiple choice questions in a given time frame. Most of the tests I did during the Bench Games were based on 40 questions, each with a maximum of 3 minutes to answer. Ergo, one test in maximum 2 hours - that sounds feasible, doesn't it? The Measure of Achievement While the 2013 Bench Games are considered a worldwide friendly competition of knowledge I was really eager to get other Mauritians attracted. Using various social media networks and community activities it all looked quite well at the beginning. Mauritius was listed on rank #19 of Most Certified Citizens and rank #10 of Most Master Level Certified Nation - not bad, not bad... Until... the next update of the Bench Games Leaderboard. The downwards trend seemed to be unstoppable and I couldn't understand why my results didn't show up on the Individual Leader Board. First of all, I passed exams that were not even listed and second, I had better results on some exams listed. After some further information from the organiser it turned out that my test transcript wasn't available to the public. Only then results are considered and counted in the competition. During that time, I actually managed to hold 3 test results on the Individuals... Other participants were merciless, eh, more successful than me, produced better test results than I did. But still I managed to stay on the final score board: An 'exotic' combination of exam, test result, country and person itself Representing Mauritius and the Visual FoxPro community in that fun event. And although I mainly develop in Visual FoxPro 9.0 SP2 and C# using .NET Framework from 2.0 to 4.5 since a couple of years I still managed to pass on Master Level. Hm, actually my Microsoft Certified Programmer (MCP) exams are dated back in June 2004 - more than 9 years ago... Look who got lucky... As described above I did a couple of exams as time allowed and without any preparations, but still I received the following mail notification: "Thank you for recently participating in our Bench Games event.  We wanted to inform you that you obtained a top score on our test(s) during this event, and as a result, will receive a free annual Brainbench subscription.  Your annual subscription will give you access to all our tests just like Bench Games, but for an entire year plus additional benefits!" -- Leader Board Notification from Brainbench Even fun activities get rewarded sometimes. Thanks to @Brainbench_com for the free annual subscription based on my passed 2013 Bench Games Master Level exam. It would be interesting to know about the total figures, especially to see how many citizens of Mauritius took part in this year's Bench Games. Anyway, I'm looking forward to be able to participate in other challenges like this in the future.

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  • Failure Driven Development

    - by DevSolo
    At our shop, we strive to be agile. And I'd say we are making great strides. That said, a few of us have spotted a pattern we have started calling "Failure Driven Development". Failure Driven Development can basically be desribed as an agile release/iteration cycle where the bugs/features are guided not by tasks and stories with acceptance criteria, but with defects entered in the defect tracking software. Our team has a great Project Manager who strives to get the acceptance criteria from the customer(s), but it's not always possible. From my development chair, this is due to the customer either not knowing exactly what they want or (and this is the kicker) two different "camps" at the customer's main office conflict with how a story should be implemented. Camp A will losely dictate that Feature X works like this, then Camp B will fail it due not functioning like that. Hence, the term "FDD". The process is driven by "failures". This leads to my question: Has anyone else encountered this and if so, any tips/suggestions for dealing with it? We have, of course, tried to get Camp A and B to agree prior, but everyone knows this isn't always the case. Thanks

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  • How can I deal with a difficult developer that is holding back the project? [migrated]

    - by ILovePaperTowels
    Our entire project is being held up because of one piece which is being handled by a single developer. When we did finally got the latest version of his code and started reviewing it, we found the code was horrendous! Its a relatively simply workflow, however the code is so complex that it's very difficult to step through and review/debug. The developer responsible has a hard time accepting any kind of criticism, and feels he is more knowledgeable than others members of the team. It's difficult to even talk to him about his development work because it turns into "I know what I'm talking about and you're just wrong!" type of conversation. A request has already been put in to replace this developer but management is not doing anything. This is probably because devs are in short supply where we are, and this is a corporation has a lot of office drama. I'm just one of the developers, not the project manager, however I really want to see this project succeed. What can I do in this sort of situation to try and keep the project on track?

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  • Are You Specialized, Excellent and Want to be Recognized for your Efforts? – Submit by July 9th 2012

    - by Kristin Rose
    You’re simply the best, better than all the rest, better than anyone! We here at OPN thought this might be the perfect opportunity to quote the great Tina Turner when referring to our Specialized partners. You’re SO darn great in fact; we want you to submit your entries for the Oracle Excellence for Specialized Partner of the Year Awards! The Call for Submission is now open in many regions, so please make note of the submission deadlines- North America’s is July 9th at 12pm PT sharp. North America winners will receive the following benefits: Recognition at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco An Oracle Excellence Award for Specialized Partner of the Year – North America trophy will be sent to the winner’s office Use of the Award Logo for one year News coverage in Oracle Magazine, mention in an official Oracle Press Release, quote support for their own press releases from Group Vice-President, North America Alliances and Channels So, if you too think you’re company is the best, or just like Tina’s style, we want to hear from you! But hurry because the deadline is quickly approaching. Click here to find out which award your region qualifies for. What’s Love Got To Do With It, The OPN Communications Team

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  • Good sysadmin practise?

    - by Randomthrowaway
    Throwaway account here. Recently our sysadmin sent us the following email (I removed the names): Hi, I had a situation yesterday (not mentioning names) when I had to perform a three way md5 checksum verification over the phone, more than once. If we can stick to the same standards then this will save any confusion if you are ever asked to repeat something over the phone or in the office for clarification. This is of particular importance when trying to speak or say this over the phone … m4f7s29gsd32156ffsdf … that’s really difficult to get right on a bad line. The rule is very simple: 1) Speak in blocks of 4 characters and continue until the end. The recipient can read back or ask for verification on one of the blocks. 2) Use the same language! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenetic_alphabet#NATO Myself, xxx and a few others I know all speak the NATO phonetic alphabet (aka police speak) and this makes it so much easier and saves so much time. If you want to learn quickly then all you really need is A to F and 0 to 9. 0 to 9 is really easy, A to F is only 6 characters to learn. Could you tell me if forcing the developers to learn NATO alphabet is a good practise, or if there are ways (and which ways) to avoid being in such a situation?

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  • JCP Open EC Meeting on 30 September 2012

    - by heathervc
    The JCP program office and Executive Committee invites all Java Community members to attend the OPEN EC Meeting on Sunday, 30 September at the Clift Hotel in San Francisco.  The meeting is adjacent to The Zone at JavaOne, but no JavaOne (or any other kind) of pass is required to attend.  It is OPEN to all!  Agenda topics include: JCP.Next status/overview of JSRs 355 and 358, improving communications between the EC and the community; Open Q&A and reminders of JCP events at JavaOne & Annual awards.  Any other suggestions?  This meeting is for you.  Let us know your questions pmo at jcp.org. Or bring them with you.  Details below. JCP Public Executive Committee Face-to-Face Meeting Open to Executive Committee Members and the Java Developer Community Location: Clift Hotel, 495 Geary Street, San Francisco - Rita Room (downstairs from Lobby) Date and Time: 9/30/12, 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM See you there.  Check out all of the JCP @ JavaOne events.

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  • What is a good Foxit reader equivalent (or other PDF editor)?

    - by Yanick Rochon
    On Windows, I have found Foxit Reader to be quite handy when I need to highlight texts in PDF document, make annotations, etc. etc. Unfortunately, I have not yet found product as user friendly (which also does not corrupt PDF files...) and full-featured as Foxit software... Any recommendations? ** UPDATE ** I just tried the Open Office PDF import extension. It seems to work ok... If anyone used it for a while, I'd appreciate your feedback on that one. Thanks! ** UPDATE ** You can't highlight text with OpenOffice's PDF extension. Doesn't matter, I was reading this thread and found out about Xournal . As it turns out, it's in the repository. It does not natively save in PDF, but once all edits are done, the document can be exported to PDF (and overwrite the old one, just like Gimp with the native .XCE format and original PNG file, for example) I realize that this question is no longer a question in itself, but could be migrated to community wiki. However, feedbacks are still welcome! ** EDIT ** So... to close up this question, I have to say that I adopted Xournal . It is light and works pretty well, even on multi-page PDF documents. Thank you all for your answers!

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  • How to Integrate Dropbox with Pages, Keynote, and Numbers on iPad

    - by The Geek
    The iWork apps are some of the best apps on the iPad, and each show just how powerful a touchscreen device can be with the most basic of computing functions. In fact, there’s not much to dislike about the iWork apps, except for one thing: importing and exporting files. You can open documents from email attachments, download them from websites, or import them from other apps like Dropbox. Once you’ve opened your file in Pages, Keynote, or Numbers on iPad, though, you can only send it via email, upload it to a WebDAV server or Apple’s iDisk service, or wait to sync it with iTunes on your computer. Most other iOS office apps don’t offer nearly as many features as the iWork apps, but they do offer deep integration with Dropbox which makes it easy to view and edit your documents no matter where you are. Dropbox is the most popular file sync and sharing solution, and makes it absolutely painless to share folders with anyone around the world and keep your computers in sync. That is, computers and applications that integrate with Dropbox. However, you don’t need to give up on using Dropbox with iWork apps on iPad. Today we’re going to look at how you can enable WebDAV compatibility on your Dropbox account to let Pages integrate nearly the whole way with Dropbox. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s much better than the default setup. So let’s get started Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How to Integrate Dropbox with Pages, Keynote, and Numbers on iPad RGB? CMYK? Alpha? What Are Image Channels and What Do They Mean? How to Recover that Photo, Picture or File You Deleted Accidentally How To Colorize Black and White Vintage Photographs in Photoshop How To Get SSH Command-Line Access to Windows 7 Using Cygwin The How-To Geek Video Guide to Using Windows 7 Speech Recognition Stylebot Customizes Web Pages in Chrome, Now Has Downloadable Styles Blackberry, Dell, Apple, and Motorola Tablets Compared [Infographic] Encrypt Your Google Search Queries Vintage Posters Showcase the History of Tech Advertising Google Cloud Print Extension Lets You Print Doc/PDF/Txt Files from Web Sites Hack a $10 Flashlight into an Ultra-bright Premium One

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  • How do you make slides for programming talks?

    - by Yuvi Masory
    I've given a few talks recently and I have not found a good way to make slides. Here are a few desirable characteristics for programming slides: They're slides. A standard emacs buffer won't do it. They have syntax highlighting for code. They support basic formatting, like font size and color and bullets. No fancy animations needed. The only animation I desire is one-by-one appearance of bullets. So far I have considered: Microsoft Office - out of the question for Linux users. OpenOffice.org - too much for my needs, code formatting/highlighting needs to be done externally and pasted in. On the plus side supports bullets, bullet-by-bullet animation, and font formatting. Emacs - Supports all the code formatting but I haven't found a slides mode that lets me transition from one chunk to another. HTML5 - I once made slides using html5rocks as a template. It supports everything, but is too hard and time-consuming the "throw together" a few slides before a minor talk. Also the html5-only features may not work on the podium computer's installed browser. Any suggestions for programs/techniques for making code-centric presentations?

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  • XNA WP7 Texture memory and ContentManager

    - by jlongstreet
    I'm trying to get my WP7 XNA game's memory under control and under the 90MB limit for submission. One target I identified was UI textures, especially fullscreen ones, that would never get unloaded. So I moved UI texture loads to their own ContentManager so I can unload them. However, this doesn't seem to affect the value of Microsoft.Phone.Info.DeviceExtendedProperties.GetValue("ApplicationCurrentMemoryUsage"), so it doesn't look like the memory is actually being released. Example: splash screens. In Game.LoadContent(): Application.Instance.SetContentManager("UI"); // set the current content manager for (int i = 0; i < mSplashTextures.Length; ++i) { // load the splash textures mSplashTextures[i] = Application.Instance.Content.Load<Texture2D>(msSplashTextureNames[i]); } // set the content manager back to the global one Application.Instance.SetContentManager("Global"); When the initial load is done and the title screen starts, I do: Application.Instance.GetContentManager("UI").Unload(); The three textures take about 6.5 MB of memory. Before unloading the UI ContentManager, I see that ApplicationCurrentMemoryUsage is at 34.29 MB. After unloading the ContentManager (and doing a full GC.Collect()), it's still at 34.29 MB. But after that, I load another fullscreen texture (for the title screen background) and memory usage still doesn't change. Could it be keeping the memory for these textures allocated and reusing it? edit: very simple test: protected override void LoadContent() { // Create a new SpriteBatch, which can be used to draw textures. spriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(GraphicsDevice); PrintMemUsage("Before texture load: "); // TODO: use this.Content to load your game content here red = this.Content.Load<Texture2D>("Untitled"); PrintMemUsage("After texture load: "); } private void PrintMemUsage(string tag) { Debug.WriteLine(tag + Microsoft.Phone.Info.DeviceExtendedProperties.GetValue("ApplicationCurrentMemoryUsage")); } protected override void Update(GameTime gameTime) { // Allows the game to exit if (GamePad.GetState(PlayerIndex.One).Buttons.Back == ButtonState.Pressed) this.Exit(); // TODO: Add your update logic here if (count++ == 100) { GC.Collect(); GC.WaitForPendingFinalizers(); PrintMemUsage("Before CM unload: "); this.Content.Dispose(); GC.Collect(); GC.WaitForPendingFinalizers(); PrintMemUsage("After CM unload: "); red = null; spriteBatch.Dispose(); GC.Collect(); GC.WaitForPendingFinalizers(); PrintMemUsage("After SpriteBatch Dispose(): "); } base.Update(gameTime); } protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.CornflowerBlue); // TODO: Add your drawing code here if (red != null) { spriteBatch.Begin(); spriteBatch.Draw(red, new Vector2(0,0), Color.White); spriteBatch.End(); } base.Draw(gameTime); } This prints something like (it changes every time): Before texture load: 7532544 After texture load: 10727424 Before CM unload: 9875456 After CM unload: 9953280 After SpriteBatch Dispose(): 9953280

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  • How to switch off? [closed]

    - by Xophmeister
    While I've programmed software for many years, I've only recently started doing so professionally and have noticed a bit of a problematic pattern. I hope this is the best place to pose such a question, as I am interested in others' experiences and solutions... Writing software is, by its nature, a cerebral exercise. When coding for my own sake, I would do so until I was satisfied; even if that meant going all night. Now I'm coding in exchange for goods and services, on projects that are inherently uninteresting to me, I want to 'switch off' when it's time to go home. Maybe you consider that to be a 'bad attitude', but I just don't feel that whatever I'm working on is worth caring about after-hours. Besides, my employer doesn't exactly have the infrastructure required to make out-of-office changes; I can't just clone a repo and even remote login is a PITA. Anyway, the problem I'm experiencing is that, while I'm not particularly overworked or stressed, if I'm faced with a problem, my brain will work on a solution. Generally, it won't give up. Hence I can't switch off and, sometimes, the problem or the solution is significant enough that it disrupts my sleep. While, paradoxically, this doesn't seem to affect my coding ability, it can have a profound impact of the rest of my life. I get increasingly low as I get tired. So far, the best solutions I've found are writing little notes on the matter (and, say, e-mailing them back to my work address) and exercise. Neither of these can switch me off entirely and, as the week progresses, exercise especially becomes untenable due to tiredness. TL;DR How can you stop from being a coding zombie?

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  • Stumbling Through: Visual Studio 2010 (Part III)

    The last post ended with us just getting started on stumbling into text template file customization, a task that required a Visual Studio extension (Tangible T4 Editor) to even have a chance at completing.  Despite the benefits of the Tangible T4 Editor, I still had a hard time putting together a solid text template that would be easy to explain.  This is mostly due to the way the files allow you to mix code (encapsulated in <# #>) with straight-up text to generate.  It is effective to be sure, but not very readable.  Nevertheless, I will try and explain what was accomplished in my custom tt file, though the details of which are not really the point of this article (my way of saying dont criticize my crappy code, and certainly dont use it in any somewhat real application.  You may become dumber just by looking at this code.  You have been warned really the footnote I should put at the end of all of my blog posts). To begin with, there were two basic requirements that I needed the code generator to satisfy:  Reading one to many entity framework files, and using the entities that were found to write one to many class files.  Thankfully, using the Entity Object Generator as a starting point gave us an example on how to do exactly that by using the MetadataLoader and EntityFrameworkTemplateFileManager you include references to these items and use them like so: // Instantiate an entity framework file reader and file writer MetadataLoader loader = new MetadataLoader(this); EntityFrameworkTemplateFileManager fileManager = EntityFrameworkTemplateFileManager.Create(this); // Load the entity model metadata workspace MetadataWorkspace metadataWorkspace = null; bool allMetadataLoaded =loader.TryLoadAllMetadata("MFL.tt", out metadataWorkspace); EdmItemCollection ItemCollection = (EdmItemCollection)metadataWorkspace.GetItemCollection(DataSpace.CSpace); // Create an IO class to contain the 'get' methods for all entities in the model fileManager.StartNewFile("MFL.IO.gen.cs"); Next, we want to be able to loop through all of the entities found in the model, and then each property for each entity so we can generate classes and methods for each.  The code for that is blissfully simple: // Iterate through each entity in the model foreach (EntityType entity in ItemCollection.GetItems<EntityType>().OrderBy(e => e.Name)) {     // Iterate through each primitive property of the entity     foreach (EdmProperty edmProperty in entity.Properties.Where(p => p.TypeUsage.EdmType is PrimitiveType && p.DeclaringType == entity))     {         // TODO:  Create properties     }     // Iterate through each relationship of the entity     foreach (NavigationProperty navProperty in entity.NavigationProperties.Where(np => np.DeclaringType == entity))     {         // TODO:  Create associations     } } There really isnt anything more advanced than that going on in the text template the only thing I had to blunder through was realizing that if you want the generator to interpret a line of code (such as our iterations above), you need to enclose the code in <# and #> while if you want the generator to interpret the VALUE of code, such as putting the entity name into the class name, you need to enclose the code in <#= and #> like so: public partial class <#=entity.Name#> To make a long story short, I did a lot of repetition of the above to come up with a text template that generates a class for each entity based on its properties, and a set of IO methods for each entity based on its relationships.  The two work together to provide lazy-loading for hierarchical data (such getting Team.Players) so it should be pretty intuitive to use on a front-end.  This text template is available here you can tweak the inputFiles array to load one or many different edmx models and generate the basic xml IO and class files, though it will probably only work correctly in the simplest of cases, like our MFL model described in the previous post.  Additionally, there is no validation, logging or error handling which is something I want to handle later by stumbling through the enterprise library 5.0. The code that gets generated isnt anything special, though using the LINQ to XML feature was something very new and exciting for me I had only worked with XML in the past using the DOM or XML Reader objects along with XPath, and the LINQ to XML model is just so much more elegant and supposedly efficient (something to test later).  For example, the following code was generated to create a Player object for each Player node in the XML:         return from element in GetXmlData(_PlayerDataFile).Descendants("Player")             select new Player             {                 Id = int.Parse(element.Attribute("Id").Value)                 ,ParentName = element.Parent.Name.LocalName                 ,ParentId = long.Parse(element.Parent.Attribute("Id").Value)                 ,Name = element.Attribute("Name").Value                 ,PositionId = int.Parse(element.Attribute("PositionId").Value)             }; It is all done in one line of code, no looping needed.  Even though GetXmlData loads the entire xml file just like the old XML DOM approach would have, it is supposed to be much less resource intensive.  I will definitely put that to the test after we develop a user interface for getting at this data.  Speaking of the data where IS the data?  Weve put together a pretty model and a bunch of code around it, but we dont have any data to speak of.  We can certainly drop to our favorite XML editor and crank out some data, but if it doesnt totally match our model, it will not load correctly.  To help with this, Ive built in a method to generate xml at any given layer in the hierarchy.  So for us to get the closest possible thing to real data, wed need to invoke MFL.IO.GenerateTeamXML and save the results to file.  Doing so should get us something that looks like this: <Team Id="0" Name="0">   <Player Id="0" Name="0" PositionId="0">     <Statistic Id="0" PassYards="0" RushYards="0" Year="0" />   </Player> </Team> Sadly, it is missing the Positions node (havent thought of a way to generate lookup xml yet) and the data itself isnt quite realistic (well, as realistic as MFL data can be anyway).  Lets manually remedy that for now to give us a decent starter set of data.  Note that this is TWO xml files Lookups.xml and Teams.xml: <Lookups Id=0>   <Position Id="0" Name="Quarterback"/>   <Position Id="1" Name="Runningback"/> </Lookups> <Teams Id=0>   <Team Id="0" Name="Chicago">     <Player Id="0" Name="QB Bears" PositionId="0">       <Statistic Id="0" PassYards="4000" RushYards="120" Year="2008" />       <Statistic Id="1" PassYards="4200" RushYards="180" Year="2009" />     </Player>     <Player Id="1" Name="RB Bears" PositionId="1">       <Statistic Id="2" PassYards="0" RushYards="800" Year="2007" />       <Statistic Id="3" PassYards="0" RushYards="1200" Year="2008" />       <Statistic Id="4" PassYards="3" RushYards="1450" Year="2009" />     </Player>   </Team> </Teams> Ok, so we have some data, we have a way to read/write that data and we have a friendly way of representing that data.  Now, what remains is the part that I have been looking forward to the most: present the data to the user and give them the ability to add/update/delete, and doing so in a way that is very intuitive (easy) from a development standpoint.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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  • My work isn't being used... what can/ should I do?

    - by Matt
    Several months ago I was approached by a small business, who had seen my work previously and asked me to create a website for them. Since then, the website hasn't changed one bit and I haven't heard a word from them. This sucks for them as they paid for a website and haven't used it. It''s frustrating for me because I spent a huge amount of time on the website and feel that all of that effort has been wasted, furthermore, I don't feel I can use the website on my portfolio/ CV. I was thinking of offering to go round to their office for one day, and update the website for them then and there; but I'd need their support whilst there (to get the content for the about page, to get information for on their products etc.) and I don't want to disrupt their work day, nor do I want to sit there like a spare tyre and get nowhere. Furthermore, if I were to do this, should I expect to receive money for it? It's a day of my life, but I'm doing it for my benefit rather than theirs (but they benefit as well). Has anyone else had experience of a client not using their product; how did you handle it? Additional background for those who want it: The company is a local travel agent, and the website lets them CRUD offers and locations, and has several other static pages (about, contact, etc.) At the time of creating the website, I filled the static pages with lipsum, and the offers and locations with fake information, so that I could give the business an idea about what the final pages would look like; during the hand over, I guided them through the CRUD forms (they made notes) and said if they sent me the text for the pages, I'd update it.

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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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  • Using Private Extension Galleries in Visual Studio 2012

    - by Jakob Ehn
    Note: The installer and the complete source code is available over at CodePlex at the following location: http://inmetavsgallery.codeplex.com   Extensions and addins are everywhere in the Visual Studio ALM ecosystem! Microsoft releases new cool features in the form of extensions and the list of 3rd party extensions that plug into Visual Studio just keeps growing. One of the nice things about the VSIX extensions is how they are deployed. Microsoft hosts a public Visual Studio Gallery where you can upload extensions and make them available to the rest of the community. Visual Studio checks for updates to the installed extensions when you start Visual Studio, and installing/updating the extensions is fast since it is only a matter of extracting the files within the VSIX package to the local extension folder. But for custom, enterprise-specific extensions, you don’t want to publish them online to the whole world, but you still want an easy way to distribute them to your developers and partners. This is where Private Extension Galleries come into play. In Visual Studio 2012, it is now possible to add custom extensions galleries that can point to any URL, as long as that URL returns the expected content of course (see below).Registering a new gallery in Visual Studio is easy, but there is very little documentation on how to actually host the gallery. Visual Studio galleries uses Atom Feed XML as the protocol for delivering new and updated versions of the extensions. This MSDN page describes how to create a static XML file that returns the information about your extensions. This approach works, but require manual updates of that file every time you want to deploy an update of the extension. Wouldn’t it be nice with a web service that takes care of this for you, that just lets you drop a new version of your VSIX file and have it automatically detect the new version and produce the correct Atom Feed XML? Well search no more, this is exactly what the Inmeta Visual Studio Gallery Service does for you :-) Here you can see that in addition to the standard Online galleries there is an Inmeta Gallery that contains two extensions (our WIX templates and our custom TFS Checkin Policies). These can be installed/updated i the same way as extensions from the public Visual Studio Gallery. Installing the Service Download the installler (Inmeta.VSGalleryService.Install.msi) for the service and run it. The installation is straight forward, just select web site, application pool and (optional) a virtual directory where you want to install the service.   Note: If you want to run it in the web site root, just leave the application name blank Press Next and finish the installer. Open web.config in a text editor and locate the the <applicationSettings> element Edit the following setting values: FeedTitle This is the name that is shown if you browse to the service using a browser. Not used by Visual Studio BaseURI When Visual Studio downloads the extension, it will be given this URI + the name of the extension that you selected. This value should be on the following format: http://SERVER/[VDIR]/gallery/extension/ VSIXAbsolutePath This is the path where you will deploy your extensions. This can be a local folder or a remote share. You just need to make sure that the application pool identity account has read permissions in this folder Save web.config to finish the installation Open a browser and enter the URL to the service. It should show an empty Feed page:   Adding the Private Gallery in Visual Studio 2012 Now you need to add the gallery in Visual Studio. This is very easy and is done as follows: Go to Tools –> Options and select Environment –> Extensions and Updates Press Add to add a new gallery Enter a descriptive name, and add the URL that points to the web site/virtual directory where you installed the service in the previous step   Press OK to save the settings. Deploying an Extension This one is easy: Just drop the file in the designated folder! :-)  If it is a new version of an existing extension, the developers will be notified in the same way as for extensions from the public Visual Studio gallery: I hope that you will find this sever useful, please contact me if you have questions or suggestions for improvements!

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  • Oracle at the biggest career fair in Germany - Absolventenkongress Cologne

    - by Tim Koekkoek
    On the 28th and 29th of November the annual Absolventenkongress was held in Cologne and Oracle was there! The Absolventenkongress in Cologne is the biggest student and graduate career fair in Germany with around 13,000 people attending every year. Oracle was well presented with Senior Managers, Recruiters and Talent Consultants coming over from Spain, Ireland, Switzerland, the Netherlands and of course Germany. At our stand, candidates from all kinds of backgrounds came to talk to us about their careers and their plans for the future. Being able to talk directly to individuals who could potentially be their next manager, was a great experience for the candidates! Overall the fair has been a highly successful experience for Oracle and we hope to welcome some people we met during the fair soon as new Oracle employees! If you were unable to attend, but you are still interested in joining Oracle, please have a look at our Facebook page and have the chance to win a Meet & Greet with our sales managers in the Potsdam office. For all of our vacancies please have a look at http://campus.oracle.com.

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  • Hyper-V for Developers Part 1 Internal Networks

    Over the last year, weve been working with Microsoft to build training and demo content for the next version of Office Communications Server code-named Microsoft Communications Server 14.  This involved building multi-server demo environments in Hyper-V, getting them running on demo servers which we took to TechEd, PDC, and other training events, and sometimes connecting the demo servers to the show networks at those events.  ITPro stuff that should scare the hell out of a developer! It can get ugly when I occasionally have to venture into ITPro land.  Lets leave it at that. Having gone through this process about 10 to 15 times in the last year, I finally have it down.  This blog series is my attempt to put all that knowledge in one place if anything, so I can find it somewhere when I need it again.  Ill start with the most simple scenario and then build on top of it in future blog posts. If youre an ITPro, please resist the urge to laugh at how trivial this is. Internal Hyper-V Networks Lets start simple.  An internal network is one that intended only for the virtual machines that are going to be on that network it enables them to communicate with each other. Create an Internal Network On your host machine, fire up the Hyper-V Manager and click the Virtual Network Manager in the Actions panel. Select Internal and leave all the other default values. Give the virtual network a name, and leave all the other default values. After the virtual network is created, open the Network and Sharing Center and click Change Adapter Settings to see the list of network connections. The only thing I recommend that you do is to give this connection a friendly label, e.g. Hyper-V Internal.  When you have multiple networks and virtual networks on the host machines, this helps group the networks so you can easily differentiate them from each other.  Otherwise, dont touch it, only bad things can happen. Connect the Virtual Machines to the Internal Network Im assuming that you have more than 1 virtual machine already configured in Hyper-V, for example a Domain Controller, and Exchange Server, and a SharePoint Server. What you need to do is basically plug in the network to the virtual machine.  In order to do this, the machine needs to have a virtual network adapter.  If the VM doesnt have a network adapter, open the VMs Settings and click Add Hardware in the left pane.  Choose the virtual network to which to bind the adapter to. If you already have a virtual network adapter on the VM, simply connect it to the virtual network. Assign IP Addresses to the Virtual Machines on the Internal Network Open the Network and Sharing Center on your VM, there should only be 1 network at this time.  Open the Properties of the connection, select Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) and hit Properties. In this environment, Im assigning IP addresses as 192.168.0.xxx.  This particular VM has an IP address of 192.168.0.40 with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0, and a DNS Server of 192.168.0.18.  DNS is running on the Domain Controller VM which has an IP address of 192.168.0.18. Repeat this process on every VM in your environment, obviously assigning a unique IP address to each.  In an environment with a domain controller, you should now be able to ping the machines from each other. What Next? After completing this process, heres what you still cannot do: Access the internet from any of the VMs Remote desktop to a VM from the host Remote desktop to a VM over the network In the next post, well take a look configuring an External network adapter on the virtual machines.  Well then build on top of that so that you can RDP into the VMs from the host machine and over the network.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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  • Selenium &ndash; Use Data Driven tests to run in multiple browsers and sizes

    - by Aligned
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/Aligned/archive/2013/11/04/selenium-ndash-use-data-driven-tests-to-run-in-multiple.aspxSelenium uses WebDriver (or is it the same? I’m still learning how it is connected) to run Automated UI tests in many different browsers. For example, you can run the same test in Chrome and Firefox and in a smaller sized Chrome browser. The permutations can grow quickly. One way to get them to run in MStest is to create  a test method for each test (ie ChromeDeleteItem_Small, ChromeDeleteItem_Large, FFDeleteItem_Small, FFDeleteItem_Large) that each call  the same base method, passing in the browser and size you’d like. This approach was causing a lot of duplicate code, so I decided to use the data driven approach, common to Coded UI or Unit test methods. 1. Create a class with a test method. 2. Create a csv with two columns: BrowserType, BrowserSize 3. Add rows for each permutation: Chrome, Large | Chrome, Small | Firefox, Large | Firefox, Small | IE, Large | IE, Small | *** 4. Add the csv to the Visual Studio Project. 5. Set the Copy to output directory to Copy always 6. Add the attribute: [DataSource("Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.DataSource.CSV", "|DataDirectory|\\TestMatrix.csv", "TestMatrix#csv", DataAccessMethod.Sequential), DeploymentItem("TestMatrix.csv")] 7. Run the test in the test explorer Example:[CodedUITest] public class AllTasksTests : TasksTestBase { [TestMethod] [TestCategory("Tasks")] [DataSource("Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.DataSource.CSV", "|DataDirectory|\\TestMatrix.csv", "TestMatrix#csv", DataAccessMethod.Sequential), DeploymentItem("TestMatrix.csv")] public void CreateTask() { this.PrepForDataDrivenTest(); base.CreateTaskTest("New Task"); } } protected void PrepForDataDrivenTest() { var browserType = this.ParseBrowserType(Context.DataRow["BrowserType"].ToString()); var browserSize = this.ParseBrowserSize(Context.DataRow["BrowserSize"].ToString()); this.BrowserType = browserType; this.BrowserSize = browserSize; Trace.WriteLine("browser: " + browserType.ToString()); Trace.WriteLine("browser size: " + browserSize.ToString()); } /// <summary> /// Get the enum value from the string /// </summary> /// <param name="browserType">Chrome, Firefox, or IE</param> /// <returns>The browser type.</returns> private BrowserType ParseBrowserType(string browserType) { return (UITestFramework.BrowserType)Enum.Parse(typeof(UITestFramework.BrowserType), browserType, true); } /// <summary> /// Get the browser size enum value from the string /// </summary> /// <param name="browserSize">Small, Medium, Large</param> /// <returns>the browser size</returns> private BrowserSizeEnum ParseBrowserSize(string browserSize) { return (BrowserSizeEnum)Enum.Parse(typeof(BrowserSizeEnum), browserSize, true); }/// <summary> /// Change the browser to the size based on the enum. /// </summary> /// <param name="browserSize">The BrowserSizeEnum value to resize the window to.</param> private void ResizeBrowser(BrowserSizeEnum browserSize) { switch (browserSize) { case BrowserSizeEnum.Large: this.driver.Manage().Window.Maximize(); break; case BrowserSizeEnum.Medium: this.driver.Manage().Window.Size = new Size(800, this.driver.Manage().Window.Size.Height); break; case BrowserSizeEnum.Small: this.driver.Manage().Window.Size = new Size(500, this.driver.Manage().Window.Size.Height); break; default: break; } }/// <summary> /// Browser sizes for automation testing /// </summary> public enum BrowserSizeEnum { /// <summary> /// Large size, Maximized to the desktop /// </summary> Large, /// <summary> /// Similar to tablets /// </summary> Medium, /// <summary> /// Phone sizes... 610px and smaller /// </summary> Small } Hope it helps!

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  • I don't program in my spare time. Does that make me a bad developer?

    - by not-my-real-name
    A lot of blogs and advice on the web seem to suggest that in order to become a great developer, doing just your day job is not enough. For example, you should contribute to open source projects in your spare time, write smartphone apps, etc. In fact a lot of this advice seems to suggest that if you don't love programming enough to do it all day long then you're probably in the wrong career. That doesn't ring true with me. I enjoy my work, but when I come home from the office I'm not in the mood to jump straight back onto the computer and start coding away until bedtime. I only have a certain number of hours free time each day, and I'd rather spend them on other hobbies, seeing friends or going outside than in front of the computer. I do get a kick out of programming, and do hack around outside of work occasionally. I'm committed to my personal development and spend time reading tech blogs and books as a way to keep learning and becoming better. But that doesn't extend so far as to my wanting to use all my spare time for coding. Does this mean I'm not a 'true' software developer at heart? Is it possible to become a good software developer without doing extra outside your job? I'd be very interested to hear what you think.

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  • VMware9 fails to launch Virtual OS. Ubuntu 12.10 64bit (Unable to change virtual machine power state: Pipe connection has been broken.)

    - by pst007x
    Another issue I need help with. I use VMware for work on Ubuntu 12.04. However for some reasons my VMware Workstation software generates the following error: Unable to change virtual machine power state: Failed to power on '/home/pst007x/vmware/Windows 7 x64/Windows 7 x64.vmx'. Transport (VMDB) error -14: Pipe connection has been broken. Product: VMware® Workstation Version: 9.0.0 build-812388 Host OS Version: 3.5.0-18-generic Ubuntu 12.10 64bit Kernel Linux 3.5.0-18-generic I have seen patches, but nothing works, and the patches are not maintained, broken links. PLEASE NOTE: I know that this has been asked, but there was no answer given that resolves this issue. Unfortunately I have changed all my office and personal PC's to Ubuntu, and use Win7 in a vm, however since 12.10, vm now fails to launch. For me this is a catastrophe, and makes Ubuntu useless for me to use! I am in a desperate situation here, is there is anyone that can offer any help I would be truly appreciative. I have looked on the VMware forums and the only solution is offered for Fedora, but the people posting there are not clear about what the solution is! thanks PLEASE DO NOT CLOSE THIS QUESTION! I have tried everywhere to find a solution, but I have come up blank... Patches referenced to in other posts do not work in this version of VMware...

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  • Natural talent vs experience [on hold]

    - by Tord Johansson Munk
    Hi i have a question for you guys if you had a choice of hiring one of two programmers. One of them is a natural born programming talent, he has been programming since he was 14 year old and he has been programming all sorts of things by him self, 3d renders,games,his own frameworks, he is really good at algorithms and problem solving. He is now about 25 years old and is looking for a job after some unchallenged years of college the only experience he has is working on his own/university stuff and some open source project. This guy spends all his free time programming and has several pet projects at home. The other person is a 37 year old career programmer. He has been programming since he graduated from university at the age of 26 and have been working since then. He did not have an interest in programming before university. During his studies he discovered that programming was fun and challenging but it never was a "passion". During his career he mainly worked with "enterprise" platforms such as .net or javaEE. He mainly have done database business applications and thus is lacking skills of the young talent like abstract problem solving or algorithms. But he know the tools he has been using during the years and is reliable and almost always makes his boss happy. He keeps him self updated in the platform and tools he has and is using. But outside the office walls he don't touch any code at all. Witch one would you hire? Would you favor one of them in certain projects? Do you think that if the young talent learns his tools he will be a better programmer than the older one? Would your decision be different if both of them where lacking a degree? or if only one of them was lacking a degree be the old and experienced or the young genius.

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  • is Java free for mobile development?

    - by exTrace101
    Q1. I would like to know if it's free for a developer (I mean, if I have to pay no royalties to Sun/Oracle) to develop (Android) mobile apps in Java? After reading this snippet about use of Java field, I'm getting the impression that Java is not free for mobile development, is that right? .."General Purpose Desktop Computers and Servers" means computers, including desktop and laptop computers, or servers, used for general computing functions under end user control (such as but not specifically limited to email, general purpose Internet browsing, and office suite productivity tools). The use of Software in systems and solutions that provide dedicated functionality (other than as mentioned above) or designed for use in embedded or function-specific software applications, for example but not limited to: Software embedded in or bundled with industrial control systems, wireless mobile telephones, wireless handheld devices, netbooks, kiosks, TV/STB, Blu-ray Disc devices, telematics and network control switching equipment, printers and storage management systems, and other related systems are excluded from this definition and not licensed under this Agreement... and from http://www.excelsiorjet.com/embedded/ Notice : The Java SE Embedded technology license currently prohibits the use of Java SE in cell phones. Q2. how come these plethora of Android Java developers aren't paying Sun/Oracle a dime?

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  • Build 2013&ndash;Keynote Thoughts

    - by D'Arcy Lussier
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/dlussier/archive/2013/06/26/153243.aspxSome thoughts on the Build 2013 keynote. They Listened to Feedback while Keeping to their Plans I am one of the people in the “bring back the start menu” camp. I want my start menu. I *like* my start menu. Microsoft heard that and put it back, fantastic. But they implemented it in a way that still pushes the Windows 8 UI – and I’m actually pretty happy with it. When you hit the Start menu, you get the live-tiles displayed overlaying the desktop. But you can also swipe from the bottom to get the “all-applications” view. This, in essense, is really what those that like the Start Menu want. I believe it was mentioned that you can configure the all-applications view to be the default. They’re Committed to Improving Windows 8 The commitment to rapid deployments Ballmer talked about is crucial to Windows 8’s success. They need to keep it evolving quickly to maintain the interest of users and developers. I think the little improvements they showed are excellent (hands-free mode, multi window docking, better multi-monitor support, new developer controls, etc.). Hardware Vendors are Committed to Windows 8 They showed off a number of new hardware products (Windows 8 and Windows Phone). The Surface’s introduction to the market has done nothing to dissuade their hardware partners. Bing as a Platform is Huge for Developers!!! This was the biggest take-away from the keynote! What the team is doing with Bing not as a search engine but as a developer API is very impressive! I’m going to be diving into this over the rest of Build so watch more blog posts coming on it. Azure, Office 365, and other topics will be covered at tomorrow’s keynote. So far, great kick off to Build. Now on to sessions! D

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